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CROOKED LANES 


c 


Other Mystery Stories by the 
Same Author 

THE MAN IN THE MOONLIGHT 
THE PANELLED ROOM 
THE HOUSE OF DELUSION 




CROOKED LANES 



By 

RUPERT SARGENT pOLLAND 



PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 




Copyright, 1923, by 
George W. Jacobs & Company 


Wn* 

‘ v 


% 



All rights rtserved 
Printed in U. S. A. 


OCT 1 7 /923 

©C1A759437 

*Vv c V' 



CONTENTS 


I. 

Guests at the Peacock Inn . 



; 

II. 

The Crime at Sherwood 



24 

III. 

John Caradine’s Servant 



40 

IV. 

A Picture of Fancy 



54 

V. 

Joan Opens an Office . 



64 

VI. 

The Lost Mr. Lunt 



75 

VII. 

The Couple in the Car 



92 

VIII. 

Mrs. Welsh .... 



106 

IX. 

Calvert Sees a Photograph 



121 

X. 

The Girl at Northfield 



135 

XI. 

Nancy Hackett’s Game 



149 

XII. 

The Boat on the Pond . 



163 

XIII. 

The Man at the Window 



174 

XIV. 

A Lady in Flight . 



187 

XV. 

Welsh Tries to Explain 



200 

XVI. 

The Arrest of Lunt 



209 

XVII. 

The Two Detectives 



222 

XVIII. 

A Lawyer’s Predicament 



231 

XIX. 

The Result of a Call . 



242 

XX. 

The Empty Nest . 



252 

XXI. 

Gipsies in the Mill 



261 

XXII. 

The Next Morning at Sherwood 

• 


272 








Crooked Lanes 


I 

GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 

The Peacock Inn was a charming, white-painted, 
old-fashioned dwelling-house on the main highroad 
through Westminster. It had not been an inn very 
long; in fact it had only been open as a public hostelry 
for two months when Roger Blythe arrived at its door 
in the first week of June. 

From a pole above the picket gate swung the sign¬ 
board, a wooden peacock, tail raised, its hundred eyes 
—more or less—painted beautifully in green and gold, 
the work of a professional portrait painter who, 
through his friendship for the innkeeper and the lat¬ 
ter's wife, had turned his brush to limning the brilliant 
bird. Square and neat, gleaming brass knocker on the 
front door, green shutters, chintz curtains at the win¬ 
dows, the inn stood back from the road a decent dis¬ 
tance, reached from the gate by a trim, brick path. 
At one end was the porch, where automobile parties 
might have lunch or tea. Around the corner was a 


8 ' CROOKED LANES 

glimpse of a vegetable garden, flanked by a row of 
apple trees. 

Blythe, who had driven up from the railroad station 
in one of the rather dilapidated cars that did taxi serv¬ 
ice in Westminster, smiled broadly as he beat a rat-a- 
tat on the door with the shining knocker. He was 
going to see his friend Herbert Eddy, a Harvard class¬ 
mate of ten years ago, and moreover to see him for 
the first time in the dual role of Benedict and Boniface. 
Bert Eddy as married man! Bert Eddy as inn¬ 
keeper! There was something highly amusing about 
that long, lank fellow in either of those positions. 
Well, there had always been one thing you could count 
on in Eddy, and that was that you never could tell 
what he was going to do next. 

The door was opened by a pretty young woman, to 
whom Blythe took off his hat. 

“ Is Mr. Eddy at home? ” 

“ Are you Roger Blythe? ” 

“Are you Mrs. Eddy? I’m ever so glad to meet 
you.” 

They shook hands, each laughing a little, like 
people who have heard interesting things about each 
other. 

“ Herbert! ” called Agnes Eddy; and added, “ He's 
putting up a shelf in the kitchen." 

Blythe set down his suitcase in the hall, and next 


GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 


9 


minute was greeting his classmate, who appeared from 
the rear of the house. 

The men slapped each other on the back, grinning 
and chuckling. “It’s great to see you, old boy!” 
“How fine you’re looking!” Mrs. Eddy watched 
them, amused. 

“Agnes, this is Roger,” said Eddy; and added to 
his friend, “ I’ve told her a lot about you.” 

“ I hope you were circumspect,” said Blythe. 
“ Well, I want to congratulate both of you. You’ve 
certainly drawn trumps.” 

“ She’s reformed me all right,” said Eddy. “ I was 
trying to sell bonds in the city, and making a fizzle 
of it, and pining for good country air, when along she 
came and married me, and suggested we open an inn 
out here in a house her uncle had left her. I’d never 
known it before, but I discovered all at once that I’d 
always had a yearning to run a public-house. And 
on the side we sell imitation old furniture for a dealer 
in the city.” 

“ You’re not supposed to stress that word ‘ imita¬ 
tion/ Herbert,” Agnes reproved. 

“ That’s so; I’m not. But I haven’t any secrets 
from Roger.” 

“ I hope you find business good,” said Blythe. 

Eddy nodded. “ Last Sunday we had more lunches 
and suppers than we could handle. They’re our main 


10 


CROOKED LANES 


source of revenue. So far we’ve only had occasional 
roomers; but to-night all three rooms are taken. 
There’s a Mr. Hamilton Calvert in the north room, 
and you in the south, and the pink room at the back 
is reserved for a school friend of Agnes, Joan 
Fordyce, of Boston. She ought to be here pretty 
soon.” 

“ She’s a cousin of John Caradine,” explained 
Agnes. “ But she doesn’t know him very well, and 
hasn’t seen him since she was a little girl. I thought 
it would be so nice to have them meet, now that he’s 
settled here.” 

“ I have an appointment with him in the morning,” 
said Blythe. “ I want him to give me material about 
his explorations in Brazil for a special magazine 
article. That’s what brought me here;—that and the 

'N. 

opportunity of seeing the Eddys.” 

Herbert Eddy ran his fingers through his hair, a 
trick that Blythe well remembered. “ Caradine is an 
interesting man,” he meditated; “ something of an 
original.” 

Agnes turned to her husband. “ Hadn’t you better 
take Mr. Blythe up to his room?” she suggested. 
“ He must want to wash and rest after his long ride 
from New York.” 

“Of course.” Eddy picked up the suitcase and 
mounted the stairs. “ I’m not letter-perfect yet in the 


GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 11 

duties of innkeeper, you see,” he called over his shoul¬ 
der to his friend. 

The south bedroom was scrupulously neat and most 
inviting. It had windows to the front and to one side; 
the furniture, even though imitation, was yet patterned 
after the best of colonial days; a washstand, with run¬ 
ning water, occupied one corner. The new arrival 
gave a gratified sigh. “Solid comfort, Bert! This 
does look good to a fellow who lives in a ten by twenty 
apartment on Manhattan Island! ” 

“ All my wife’s doing, Roger,” proudly stated Eddy. 
“ I wasn’t very well in Philadelphia; been burning the 
candle at both ends, I guess; and along she came with 
this project for combining pleasure and profit. Profit 
so far perhaps negligible; but pleasure not to be cal¬ 
culated. Get yourself a wife, old chap, and grow fat 
and contented.” 

Blythe smiled at the other man, who, although he 
was still long and lank, unquestionably looked happy. 
“ We can’t all be as successful as you, Bert.” 

“ Well, of course there’s something in that. But 
there are lots of nice girls-” 

“Nice girls!” Blythe snorted. “I’ll bet that isn’t 
the way you thought about Mrs. Eddy when you were 
courting her.” 

“ No, I didn’t,” Eddy admitted. “ I knew she was 
One in a million, the one for me, in fact, from however 



12 


CROOKED LANES 


many millions of the gentler sex there may be in the 
habitable globe. But fortunately what attracts one 
man doesn’t attract another-” 

“ Hold on, Bert, hold on! ” his friend interrupted. 
“ I always like to listen to your lectures; but I’ve a 
notion that the paragon of her sex is waiting for you 
to finish putting up that shelf in the kitchen,—and I’ve 
an overwhelming desire for a bath and a clean shirt.” 

Half an hour later Blythe descended to the living- 
room, and not wishing to interrupt his friends in their 
household duties stepped out through a French win¬ 
dow to the porch at the northern side. He smoked a 
cigarette while he contemplated the view, a panorama 
of the soft greens of early summer, with here and there 
a glimpse of a country house. Presently Mrs. Eddy 
appeared, with a dark-haired young woman in a de¬ 
lightfully cool-looking light blue gown. “ This is my 
friend Joan Fordyce,” she said; “Mr. Roger Blythe. 
Please amuse each other while I help our little maid- 
of-all-work set the dinner table.” 

“ Can’t I come in with you and help too, Agnes? ” 
Miss Fordyce urged. 

“ No, my dear. The first rule of the Peacock is that 
guests mustn’t interfere with the hotel staff. I know 
you’d like to, but you mustn’t. It would confuse small 
Susan.” And with a nod Mrs. Eddy went into the 
house again. 



GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 13 


Miss Fordyce seated herself in a wicker basket- 
chair. Her face was tanned, and her slender figure 
had an athletic litheness. She gave Blythe a frank 
smile. “ Aren’t they delicious, those two? ” she said. 
“Agnes and Herbert? Running an inn, and inviting 
their friends to come and visit them and monopolize 
the guest-rooms.” 

“ They are delicious,” Blythe agreed. “ But I came 
here on business, though I’m mighty glad my business 
allows me to see Bert and his wife. I’m after ma¬ 
terial for a magazine—it’s The Nezv Era —from John 
Caradine. And, by the way, Mrs. Eddy said you were 
a cousin of his.” 

“ Yes, I am. But I don’t know very much about 
him, although I would like to. Fve always under¬ 
stood that he was very nice. His father and my 
mother were brother and sister. Cousin John, how¬ 
ever, has been traveling all over the world for goodness 
knows how long. This last time he was in South 
America nobody heard of him for three years; and 
though he wrote me when he came back to West¬ 
minster that he was coming up to Boston to see me, he 
hasn’t come yet. He must be an unusually interesting 
man.” 

“ I’m to see him to-morrow morning at nine,” said 
Blythe, sitting down near Miss Fordyce. “ Why don’t 
you come along and let me introduce you ? ” 


14 


CROOKED LANES 


“Thrust myself on Cousin John? Oh, no, no. 
Agnes says she’s going to think up some way of hav¬ 
ing us meet casually, on neutral ground, as it were. 
I like him too much to have him think I’m forcing 
myself upon him.” 

“ I suppose he’s an odd sort of fellow,” Blythe con¬ 
jectured. “ Most men who’ve done unusual things 
are odd, I find. And a fellow who’s lived among 
tribes along the Amazon—tribes who’ve never seen 
more than one or two white men—is entitled to be 
different. Think of the stories he could tell, if he 
only would! ” 

“ But do you think you can get him to talk about his 
adventures, Mr. Blythe? They say he isn’t much of a 
talker.” 

“ That’s where I’ve got to put forth all my powers 
of persuasion.” Blythe glanced at the young woman. 
“ It seems to me there ought to be considerable satis¬ 
faction in sharing his unique information with other 
people, thrilling them with the things he’s seen and 
done. Now if I could get him to talking, and you 
could show him how thrilled you were—a woman 
makes a more appealing audience than a mere man— 
we might do something with him. How does that 
strike you? ” 

Joan Fordyce laughed. “ I’d like to help you,— 
really I would. But I’d prefer to meet him the first 


GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 15 


time as a long-lost cousin rather than as a sample of 
The New Era's readers.” 

This remark brought a chuckle from Blythe, and 
before he could continue his argument a soft-voiced 
gong indoors told them it was time for dinner. 

Eddy and his wife, discarding their professional 
roles for the evening, did the honors of the table. It 
was a merry party, the host and hostess, Joan Fordyce, 
Blythe, and the other guest at the inn, Hamilton Cal¬ 
vert. The latter was a round-faced man, with very 
rosy cheeks, attired in a white flannel suit. In the 
course of conversation it came out that his principal 
occupation was the writing of casual essays, from 
which Blythe judged that he must be a man of in¬ 
dependent means. 

“ Mr. Blythe wants me to help him interview Cousin 
John Caradine in the interest of the public,” Joan stated 
when the diminutive maid had served them with 
soup. 

“ Well, who knows,” said Blythe, “ but that the 
housekeepers of the United States might pick up valu¬ 
able pointers on domestic economy from the primitive 
South American tribes ? ” 

“ I’m sure I could,” said Agnes. “ Anything primi¬ 
tive in the housekeeping line appeals to me just now.” 

“ The difficulty is,” put in Calvert in his bland tone, 
“ that a man like Caradine, an explorer, a scholar, 

<4 


16 CROOKED LANES 

doesn’t care a rap for the public. He’s sufficient to 
himself.” 

“ I believe you’re right,” said Eddy. “ That’s the 
reputation he has in Westminster. He’s been here six 
months now, at Sherwood, his father’s house, and as 
far as I’ve heard he hasn’t taken the slightest interest 
in any neighborhood affairs. I understand a lot of 
people called on him when he first came, but he didn’t 
return the calls.” 

“ I liked him,” said Agnes, “ the one time I saw 
him. I was giving the gate a coat of paint, and he 
came along the road;—the entrance to Sherwood is 
just a little above here, you know,—and he stopped 
and asked how we were getting on with our venture. 
He seemed the sort of person who’s very much in¬ 
terested in what he sees.” 

“ I should like to know him,” mused Calvert. “ I 
should like to find out what a man who has lived 
among cannibals thinks of nice, refined people who 
don’t cook their enemies. Yes, that would be en¬ 
lightening.” 

There was something about the quiet drawl that 
made the other four laugh. “ Well, I don’t see why 
you shouldn’t find out,” declared Joan. “ Here are 
two of us planning to break in on him. If you join 
forces with us, surely even Cousin John will have to 
capitulate.” 


GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 17 


“ That’s what I think,” said Agnes. “ And if you 
three can only manage to make Mr. Caradine famous 
it will help business here. Lion-hunters will stop off 
to see him—and put up at the Peacock Inn.” 

“ Roger,” said Eddy, “ I’d like to call your attention 
to this pastry. It was made by my wife’s fair hands.” 

“ It melts in the mouth,” declared Blythe. “ I’ve 
never tasted such pastry before.” 

“ Delectable! ” murmured Calvert. “ Mrs. Eddy’s 
pastry ought to help reconcile Mr. Caradine to our 
civilization.” 

“ You evidently think,” said Joan, raising her dark 
brows questioningly at the rosy-cheeked man, “ that 
he wouldn’t care much for most of the things he finds 
here.” 

Calvert shrugged his white-flanneled shoulders. “ I 
take it for granted that he would think well of this 
part of Westminster—the suburban part, I mean,— 
but there is the other part, the town at the foot of the 
hill.” 

“ It’s the usual small American manufacturing com¬ 
munity,” said Eddy. 

“ That’s provided the money for the well-to-do to 
live up here out of sight of it,” added Blythe. 

“ Exactly so,” smiled Calvert. “ Well—in answer 
to Miss Fordyce’s question—I don’t think Caradine 
would care much for that part of Westminster.” 


18 


CROOKED LANES 


“ I don’t suppose he’s ever thought anything about 
it,” Eddy protested. 

Calvert smiled. “ Remember your wife said that 
he impressed her as a person who would be interested 
in everything he sees. And there are interesting things 
happening in Westminster,” he added enigmatically. 

Dinner over, they adjourned to the porch. A new 
moon hung in the sky, and the air was sweet with the 
fragrance of early June. From somewhere came the 
rhythm of a frog chorus. Blythe lighted a favorite 
briar pipe. “ This is certainly solid comfort, Bert,” he 
said. “ As a dweller in the canyons of New York, 
I envy you this bucolic scene.” 

“ I wonder,” said Calvert, who had also lighted a 
pipe, “ how much our enjoyment of a thing depends 
on the infrequency with which we have it. Would 
Mr. Blythe, whom I take to be a confirmed city dweller, 
appreciate the beauties of a frog chorus if he had to 
hear it every evening? ” 

“ In such company as this I would,” Blythe re¬ 
sponded promptly. 

“ Good for you, my boy,” came from Eddy. “ I 
thank vou on behalf of the ladies.” 

“ Mr. Calvert,” said Joan, “ is evidently an expert 
wonderer. Do you always go about,” she continued, 
addressing him directly, “ with a question mark in 
your hand ? ” 


GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 19 


“ I suppose I do/’ the man in white flannels ad¬ 
mitted. “ I have an innate prejudice against taking 
things for granted.” 

“ Well, if you were an innkeeper,” said Eddy, 
“ you’d take it for granted that there was some chore 
waiting for you to do. Excuse me, friends, while I 
find it.” And he went indoors. 

A few minutes later Agnes also left the porch for 
the kitchen. The other three chatted. Fireflies glowed 
in the darkness. Occasionally the headlights of an 
automobile flashed by on the highroad. Presently 
Joan rose, saying that she wanted to see what Agnes 
was doing. The two men smoked on until Calvert, 
stretching and half-yawning, asked whether Blythe 
would care to take a turn up the road before he went 
to bed. 

They strolled along, exchanging views on a variety 
of subjects, until they came to two stone gate-posts, 
flanking a driveway, on the right of the road. 
“ That’s the entrance to Sherwood, Caradine’s place,’* 
said Calvert. “ I understand he has any number of 
acres. You know, I think it’s rather fine for a man 
as rich as he’s said to be, to spend his time studying 
primitive tribes, and putting up with all sorts of hard¬ 
ships for the sake of acquiring knowledge.” 

“ You make me very curious about him,” said 
Blythe. “ I’ve been thinking of him as an explorer 


20 


CROOKED LANES 


—valuable material for a magazine—but from what 
you’ve suggested I’m beginning to feel as if he were 
some kind of a sphinx.” 

Calvert nodded. “ I’d like to study him, at close 
range.” 

“ You know him—by sight? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I’ve seen him several times, walking on 
the road. Mrs. Eddy pointed him out to me. He’s 
well built, rather loose-jointed, the rangy type of 
man.” 

“He doesn’t look disagreeable or stand-offish?” 
Blythe asked. 

“ On the contrary, I should say he was really very 
amiable.” 

Blythe took out his watch and glanced at it. “ It’s 
only a quarter to ten. Why shouldn’t we drop in on 
him for a few minutes ? That would give you a chance 
to meet him, and you could advise me how best to 
tackle him.” 

“ I don’t suppose he’d take offence,” Calvert mused. 

“ Nonsense. I began my career on a newspaper, 
and I’m used to butting in on all sorts of people at all 
sorts of hours. Caradine’s easy; he’s a bachelor, and 
probably sits up late.” 

“ Very well,” nodded Calvert, and turned in between 
the gate-posts. 

Stirred by a feeling of curiosity as to the explorer. 


GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 21 


they went up the driveway, past rows of flowering 
shrubs. Then the drive wound between trees, a dim 
ribbon for a hundred yards or so. After that, open 
spaces again; and before them, on a slight eminence, 
appeared a large mid-Victorian mansion, outlined 
against the starlit sky, but itself unlighted, so far as 
they could see. 

“ I’m not so sure about his sitting up late,” chuckled 
Calvert. “ It looks to me as if everybody was in bed.” 

“ Maybe his rooms are at the back of the house;” 
suggested Blythe. “ You don’t suppose he keeps some 
wild South American watch-dog, do you?” 

Having come so far, they were disinclined to turn 
back, and went on to the curve of the drive before the 
big front door. Still there was no light or sound in 
the rambling house. 

“ Shall we ring the bell ? ” asked Calvert, on the 
doorstep. 

“ Certainly we shall,” Blythe retorted, and pushed 
the bell-button. “ I always think it looks worse to go 
up to a house and not ring the bell than it does to ring 
and take the consequences.” 

They waited; then rang again. 

“ Everybody’s gone to bed; or else nobody’s home,” 
said Blythe. 

They turned away, this time walking across the 
grass, a short-cut to the driveway. After a few steps, 


22 


CROOKED LANES 


Calvert stopped abruptly. “ What’s that? ” he asked, 
pointing down at his feet. 

Blythe stooped and picked up a jagged piece of 
glass. Then he turned and looked up at a window 
close at hand. 

“ Something’s broken that window/* he said. 
“ That’s queer, isn’t it? ” 

In the starlight they could see a great jagged hole 
in one of the window-panes. “Yes, you’re right,’’ Cal¬ 
vert assented. “ I wonder now- It looks as if 

the window must have been broken not very long ago.’’ 

From the broken window their eyes roamed over the 
house. It was silent, uncommunicative. 

Blythe laid the piece of glass on the lawn, and 
stepped over to the window. He peered in through 
one of the lower panes. 

“ It’s a big room,’’ he said. “ Hello, what’s that? ’’ 

Before Calvert could look in Blythe had reached 
up and tried the window-frame. “ It’s unlocked,’’ he 
muttered, and pushed the lower frame up. Next min¬ 
ute he was on the sill. 

“I say, hold on!’’ cautioned Calvert. “You’ll be 
taken for a burglar! ” 

But now Blythe was inside the room. A moment 
more and he found the electric switch-button and 
pressed it. The apartment sprang into light. 

Calvert looked in, and then leaped into the room. 



* GUESTS AT THE PEACOCK INN 23 

Not twenty feet away,—so near that Blythe’s eyes had 
lighted on it,—lay the body of a man. Calvert gave 
one glance, and said in a horrified whisper, “ It’s John 
Caradine! ” 

Blythe was kneeling on the floor. “ He’s been shot,” 
he said. “ See, there’s the bullet wound! And not 
very long ago! ” 


II 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 

A hasty glance around the room gave no informa¬ 
tion as to what had happened to the master of Sher¬ 
wood, beyond the fact that he had apparently been 
killed by a bullet from a revolver, the wound in his 
chest being evidence of that. No weapon lay near at 
hand. There was the broken window-pane that had 
first caught the attention of Blythe and Calvert; ex¬ 
cept for that the room, which was a large oblong, and 
which appeared to be the owner’s study, provided no 
hint as to the crime that had recently taken place there. 

“ There must be servants in the house,” said Blythe 
to Calvert, as the two men stared at each other. 

“ I should think so,” Calvert agreed, turning to the 
door into the hall. 

In a minute he had flooded the lower part of the 
house in light, and then the two made a hurried search 
from the kitchen to the top floor. No door was locked, 
but in no room was any one to be found. 

“ It’s most extraordinary! ” muttered Calvert. “ I’ll 
telephone the police.” He did this immediately, find¬ 
ing a telephone on a stand near the foot of the stairs. 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 


25 


“ They‘11 come out here at once,” he announced, hang¬ 
ing up the receiver. “ They say to stay here, and not 
touch anything.” 

A tall, strongly-built man, with dark brown hair, 
wearing a gray suit and low tan shoes—such was the 
casual description of the man they had found lying 
near the window of the study. There was no clue as 
to what might have happened before the fatal shot had 
been fired. The room was not disarranged in any 
way. It contained a wide fireplace, plenty of easy 
chairs, a desk, a large centre table with the usual col¬ 
lection of papers and magazines, book-shelves on two 
sides, and several engravings, together with the por¬ 
trait of a handsome man. 

Blythe and Calvert, searching for a revolver or 
some other clue, were presently interrupted by a ring 
at the front door. Answering it, they ushered in three 
men, two police officers and a doctor, who immediately 
went into the study. “ Yes, it’s Mr. Caradine,” said 
the police lieutenant. “ I’ve seen him a number of 
times in town. He came to the tax assessor’s office in 
the City Hall, and Sam Rogers told me who he was.” 

The doctor, making his examination, reported. 
“ He’s been shot,—and it happened not very long ago.” 

“You’re friends of his?” asked the lieutenant, 
turning to the two men in light flannels. 

They explained who they were, and told how they 


26 


CROOKED LANES 


had come to Sherwood to see Mr. Caradine, had rung 
the bell without getting any answer, and had been 
leaving when they saw the broken glass, climbed in at 
the window, and so found the owner on the floor. 

“ 1 knew Mr. Caradine by sight only,” said Calvert. 

“ I had never seen him,” said Blythe. “ But I had 
an appointment to call on him here at nine to-morrow 
morning.” 

“Aren’t there any servants in the house?” ques¬ 
tioned the lieutenant. 

“ Apparently not,” answered Blythe, and told of 
their search upstairs. 

“ That’s queer.” The officer looked about him; and 
then asked, “ You haven’t touched anything? Haven’t 
seen any revolver? ” 

Blythe shook his head. “ Everything is exactly as 
we found it when we came in half an hour ago.” 

Meantime the other policeman had been carefully 
removing the contents of Caradine’s pockets. These 
were such articles as any man might carry, a handker¬ 
chief with his initials in one corner, a pocketbook, a 
cigarette case, a bunch of keys, a small, pearl-handled 
penknife. 

“ Well,” said the lieutenant presently, “ it doesn’t 
look like suicide. There’s no revolver anywhere on 
the floor. That broken window-pane seems to indi¬ 
cate that at least two shots were fired. Now if there 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 27 

had been any servants in the house at the time they 
must have heard them. And a man like Mr. Caradine 
must have had servants/’ 

The three officials talked together for a few minutes, 
and then the lieutenant spoke to Blythe and Calvert. 
“You gentlemen are staying at this inn—the Pea¬ 
cock? Will you give me your cards? We shall want 
you to stay here a few days, until we’ve had time to 
make an investigation. But there isn’t any need to 
keep you here longer to-night.” 

Blythe and Calvert gave their cards, and assured 
the officer that they would be at the inn in case he 
should want to see them. Then they left the house 
and walked down the driveway. 

“ Well,” said Calvert, “ undoubtedly the first ques¬ 
tion is: what became of Caradine’s servants? Were 
there any in the house this evening? One would sup¬ 
pose that there must have been. And if there were, 
why did they run away? To run away is the surest 
method of courting suspicion.” 

“ The first thing that occurs to me,—I’m trying to 
argue this out logically,” said Blythe, “ is that the 
owner found a thief in his house, and was shot by the 
crook. John Caradine was known to be a rich man; 
his house, out here in the country, might have tempted 
a burglar; there were all sorts of opportunities offered 
by its doors and windows. If a thief did break in, 


28 


CROOKED LANES 


and Caradine happened to discover him, a man of 
his type—used to roughing it and dealing with all kinds 
of people—would have tackled him, and then it would 
have been a very easy matter for the man to get away 
without being seen. ,, 

Calvert nodded. “ That’s logical enough. But the 
shot, or shots, would in all probability have been heard, 
and the servants would have run in from the kitchen, 
or wherever they might be. We got to the house 
about ten o’clock, and the shooting had occurred before 
that—early enough, that is, for some of the servants 
to be about. If they did go into that room and found 
Caradine wounded, of course they’d immediately call 
a doctor and the police. But they didn’t do that. 
Therefore there weren’t any other people at Sherwood 
this evening, or, if there were, they had some good 
reason for making themselves scarce.” 

“ And yet, as you just said,” argued Blythe, “ to 
run away from a crime is sure to rouse suspicion. 
Any one would know the police could find out who 
was in Caradine’s employ, and track them.” 

The two men walked some distance in silence. 
“ Caradine was a very unusual person,” mused Cal¬ 
vert. “We must remember that.” 

“ What a strange coincidence! ” Blythe broke in. 
“ I had an appointment with him in the morning, and 
his cousin had just come here.” 


29 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 

“ Coincidences,” said Calvert, in his slow, detached 
voice, '‘are interesting; but they may, or may not, 
be important. Another coincidence is the fact that you 
and I suddenly decided to call here to-night, when we 
hadn’t any such intention when we started out.” 

Blythe nodded. “ That’s so.” After a moment he 
added: “ This is going to be pretty hard for Miss 
Fordyce.” 

“ Yes, it is. Poor girl.” 

They reached the highroad. A short walk down it, 
and they entered the pleasant, lamp-lighted sitting- 
room of the inn. 

Herbert and Agnes Eddy and Joan Fordyce were 
still up. To them Blythe and Calvert told the tragedy 
that had happened at Sherwood. 

There were questions and answers. For some time 
they talked, Agnes and the three men trying their best 
to befriend Joan Fordyce in this tragic situation. 

Presently Agnes said, “ I think we’d better go to 
bed, Joan dear.” 

The two women went upstairs, and after some fur¬ 
ther talk, chiefly questions by Eddy, the men likewise 
sought their rooms. 

They all met at breakfast next morning, and dis¬ 
cussed how they could be of service to Joan Fordyce. 
As a result of their conference, in mid-morning, Joan, 
accompanied by Blythe and Calvert, left the inn and 


30 


CROOKED LANES 


took a crossroad to the trolley line that ran to the 
town, a mile away. 

They went at once to Police Headquarters, where 
they found Lieutenant Erdman, the officer who had 
gone to Sherwood the previous night, in his private 
room. Blythe introduced Joan to him, and she ex¬ 
plained her relation to John Caradine. The lieutenant 
asked a good many questions, which she answered in 
her frank, collected manner, telling him all that she 
knew of her cousin’s recent history, which was not 
very much. 

“ Then, as I understand it. Miss Fordyce,” said 
Erdman, who had listened to her statement with great 
attention, “ you are Mr. Caradine’s heir. We found 
some papers of his in the desk at Sherwood, and 
learned that Mr. Joshua Mason, on Washington 
Street, was your cousin’s attorney. Probably he has a 
copy of Mr. Caradine’s will, and he’ll look after all the 
legal details connected with the estate. There will be 
an inquest, of course, and these two gentlemen will 
be required to appear and give their evidence.” He 
added, frowning at his blotter: “ We haven’t learned 
much yet.” 

“ How about the servants? ” asked Blythe. 

The lieutenant tapped on a pad of paper with his 
pencil. “ There were two of them, a man and a 
woman,—so we learn from the people Mr. Caradine 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 


31 


dealt with in Westminster. The man was a respect¬ 
able, quiet fellow, Edward Grant by name. The 
woman was a Mrs. Smithers. The butcher tells me 
that he understands she went to Philadelphia on a 
vacation about a week ago.” 

“ This man Grant then was the only servant who 
would have been at Sherwood last night ? ” said Cal¬ 
vert. 

“ That’s how it seems,” answered Erdman. “ I 
don’t usually discuss matters of business; but under 

the circumstances-” Here he indicated Joan with 

a nod of his head. “ So long as you won’t gossip with 
the reporters, I don’t mind telling you what we do 
know; and that, up to the present, is practically noth¬ 
ing. Mr. Caradine was a man of very simple habits. 
I suppose he’d been so much in queer places—those 
South American jungles, for instance—that he didn’t 
feel the need of having a lot of people around to wait 
on him. He had an automobile—a small roadster; we 
found it in the stable back of his house;—but he didn’t 
have a chauffeur, he drove it himself. Mrs. Smithers 
generally did his cooking and looked after the house; 
and when she was away Edward Grant did it. We 
haven’t located either of those two yet, but we’re fol¬ 
lowing them up. If they’re straight, they’ll probably 
come here and report to us as soon as they see the news 
in the papers.” 



,p *■”).> 

32 CROOKED * 

“Nothing was stolen from the nouse?” asked 
Blythe. 

“ Not as far as we know,” was the answer. “ Of 
course we can’t tell about that, not knowing what there 
was that might have been taken.” 

The three callers waited for me* . nformation, but 

) 

as Erdman apparently had nothing n *e to tell them 
they rose from their chairs. 

“ That’s all, for the present,” said 11 lieutenant, 
also standing up. “ It’s one of thos eases where 
there’s almost nothing to go on. The man who shot 
Mr. Caradine might have got away anywhere. He 
didn’t leave any trace in the house, so far as we’ve 
been able to discover. The conductor on the trolley 
that left here at a quarter to nine last night says that 
a man in a cap, with a light overcoat on his arm, 
boarded the car at the crossing at Mill Road—the near¬ 
est stop to Mr. Caradine’s house—a little past the hour 
and rode as far as the terminus at Newbridge. No 
one else boarded any car in that neighborhood between 
seven and half-past ten.” 

“ I shouldn’t think a man who’d committed a crime 
would take a trolley car near by,” said Blythe. 

“ It’s not likely,” agreed Erdmar “ But then we 
find that you never can tell what a, v x erson may do,— 
not, at least, until you’ve got a pretty good idea of 
what that person is like. Well, Mi Kordyce, we’re 


THE ~ ’ E AT SHERWOOD 33 

doing all we can to find the guilty person. I expect 
you’ll be staying at that Peacock Inn for a time? ” 

Joan said that she had that intention, and the callers 
took their leave. 

From Police Headquarters they went to the office 
of Joshua Mason, an agreeable gentleman who had the 
reputation of t a the leader of the Westminster 
County Bar. C learning of Joan’s relation to John 
Caradine he immediately became all attention, listened 
to her accour : what she knew about her cousin, and 
told her something in return. “ I have no hesitation in 
saying,” he sta' d, “ that under the terms of Mr. Cara- 
dine’s will all his property, with the exception of a few 
bequests to learned and charitable societies, goes to his 
next of kin. I drew his will soon after he came here, 
some six months ago. At that time he mentioned his 
cousin in Boston, and said that, although he had seen 
very little of the lady, he had great affection for her.” 
Here the lawyer looked away from Joan to an en¬ 
graving of John Marshall that hung above his desk. 
“ Mr. Caradine was in many respects an unusual man. 
I judged him to be a man of deep feeling, who rarely 
allowed himself to show much sentiment. He had 
grown away from people, if I may put it that way; 
and when he car k here he found it very difficult 
to pick up informal relations with them again. There 
were some old imilies here who had been great 


34 


CROOKED LANES 


friends of the Caradines, but he was very shy with 
them. He didn’t like society; he told me so himself. 
He came in here a number of times to see me, and I 
thought he was growing restless. I shouldn’t have 
been at all surprised to have heard that he had packed 
up and started off on his travels again.” 

“ I can understand that,” put in Calvert. “ It would 
have been hard for him to get the lure of the uncivi¬ 
lized out of his blood once he had known it.” 

Joshua Mason turned to the fresh-faced man. 

“ You knew him? ” 

“ Only by reputation.” 

“ Well, sir,” said the lawyer, rubbing the tips of 

his fingers together, “ I don’t doubt that Mr. Caradine 

did know what vou have referred to as the lure of the 

* 

uncivilized, but, in his case, I don’t consider that it 
had rubbed off any of the fineness of his nature.” 

“ Oh, no, far from it,” said Calvert, with a little 
smile. “ It might very well make him all the more 
sensitive to the crimes of civilization.” 

Mr. Mason looked somewhat surprised; he arched 
his eyebrows. 

“ I don’t think I quite understand,” he said politely. 

“ Never mind,” smiled Calvert. " That’s just one 
of my little pet notions. I didn’t mean to digress.” 

The lawyer looked at Joan. “ I don’t know the ex¬ 
tent of Mr. Caradine’s property,” he resumed, “ but 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 


35 


I believe that it was considerable. His father made a 
great deal of money in the cotton mills here in West¬ 
minster, and it was very carefully invested. And that 
reminds me. John Caradine’s will is in my safe de¬ 
posit box at the Commercial Bank; but I have some¬ 
thing here that he sent me recently.” 

Going to a small safe, Mr. Mason opened it, and 
after a moment’s search took out an envelope. “ He 
• sent me this with a letter,” the lawyer explained. From 
the envelope he produced a paper and unfolded it. 
“ * I hope that my heir will do something for the poor 
people of Westminster,’ ” he read. “ ‘ Not in the way 
of giving them money outright, but in trying to im¬ 
prove the condition of the more needy. Some of them 
will need money, but this should be judiciously ex¬ 
pended. Their wants should be studied if possible, so 
that they may not be merely the recipients of charity, 
but may be set on the right road to help themselves. 
I say this because I feel that the ancestors of many of 
these Westminster people have contributed largely to 
the making of the money I have inherited. John 
Caradine.’ ” 

He handed the paper to Joan, who read it again, and 
returned it. “ I shall remember that,” she said 
quietly. 

“ It was only a request, of course,” said the law¬ 
yer. “ But I think I understand how Mr. Caradine 


36 


CROOKED LANES 


felt about it. And if in this, or in any other way, 
Miss Fordyce, I can be of any assistance to you, I 
shall be most glad to have you call on me.” 

“ Thank you,” said Joan. And after a moment’s 
consideration she added, “ I don’t suppose you know 
of any article of special value that my cousin had at 
his house, anything of very unusual interest,—some¬ 
thing that he might perhaps have obtained abroad,— 
that would have tempted a thief, not the ordinary 
sneak thief, but a man who would have planned his 
crime carefully beforehand ? ” 

“ No, Miss Fordyce, I don’t. Mr. Caradine never 
mentioned any such valuables to me. But it doesn’t 
follow from that that he didn’t possess such articles 
as you refer to. He was not what I would call a com¬ 
municative man, particularly where his own travels 
and researches were concerned. I don’t know whether 
this was because he thought that other people wouldn’t 
be interested, or because of that reticence that seems 
instinctive with many people of original turns of 
mind.” 

“ The idea just occurred to me,” said Joan. “If 
you want to communicate with me, Mr. Mason, I’m 
to be reached at Mr. Herbert Eddy’s, the Peacock Inn, 
out on the York Turnpike.” 

The lawyer bowed them to his door, and the three 
came out into Washington Street. 


THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 37 - 

“ That last question of yours might have some bear¬ 
ing on the case,” said Blythe, looking at Joan. “ But 
the difficulty is, just as the Police Lieutenant pointed 
out, that as we haven’t any knowledge of what was 
in your cousin’s house, we don’t know what a thief 
might have been after.” 

“ Possibly Edward Grant can throw some light on 
that,” Calvert suggested. “ Mr. Mason is a very ami¬ 
able man, but like most lawyers he’s careful to hedge 
his information about with all sorts of provisos.” 

They returned by trolley to the inn, where they 
found lunch ready. Afterward the three men had a 
little talk on the porch. 

“ No doubt the police will follow this up with their 
usual cut-and-dried methods,” said Blythe. “ I’d like 
to do some investigating on my own account; but I’m 
sure they won’t want us prowling around Sherwood.” 

“ They’ve got a man stationed at the gate,” said 
Eddy, “ to warn people away.” 

Calvert puffed at his pipe. “ Of course there may 
be something to be learned from the house and 
grounds,” he said slowly. “ But the more I think about 
this the more I feel that it isn’t the usual case of at¬ 
tempted robbery, and that therefore ordinary police 
methods aren’t going to clear it up. Why weren’t 
there any servants there last night? Why, if this Ed¬ 
ward Grant was there, would a respectable man such 


38 


CROOKED DANES 


as he appears to be run away and tell nobody? Ac¬ 
cording to the lawyer, Mr. Caradine was restless, and 
though he had come here with the avowed intention 
of settling down he gave the lawyer the impression 
that he might start out on his travels again. I wonder 

now—I wonder-” He knocked out his pipe and 

turned to Blythe. “ When you want to study a sub¬ 
ject the best way to begin is to take a good look 
around and familiarize yourself with the outlying ter¬ 
ritory ; isn’t that so ? I want to know something about 
John Caradine’s recent activities. He hasn’t stayed in 
his house all the time he’s been here.” 

“ But that’s too vague,” Blythe objected. “ You 
mean to ask questions of every one he met in West¬ 
minster ? ” 

“ I may do that,” Calvert agreed, with his pleasant 
smile. “ Though I’d rather pick and choose my people. 
But I thought this afternoon I’d take the trolley to 
Newbridge. I’ve been there once or twice before, but 
I’d like to look it over again.” 

“Why Newbridge?” asked Eddy. “I don’t sup¬ 
pose Caradine ever went there.” 

“ Perhaps not,” Calvert agreed again. “ But the 
Police Lieutenant told us that a man with a light over¬ 
coat and a cap took the trolley near Sherwood last 
evening and rode into Newbridge. What do you say, 
Blythe? Want to go for a ride? ” 



THE CRIME AT SHERWOOD 


39 


“All right. It sounds like a wild goose chase to me, 
but it’s better than sitting here, asking ourselves rid¬ 


dles. 




Ill 


JOHN CARADINE’s SERVANT 

No two men could have been more different than 
Roger Blythe and Hamilton Calvert. The former was 
objective, practical, outspoken and frank; Calvert, on 
the contrary, seemed to take pleasure in circumlocu¬ 
tion, in indolent speculation; he gave the impression 
of preferring the role of spectator to that of actor, 
and regarded men and events with a humorous, good- 
natured eye. As they went by trolley to Newbridge 
Calvert, instead of discussing the Caradine affair, held 
forth at length on what he was pleased to call “ the 
absurd conformity to type of the various trades and 
professions.” “ Dress a man up in a blue coat with 
brass buttons and call him a traffic policeman, and the 
first thing you know he’ll be ordering people about 
like a full-fledged general. Take a young fellow and 
set him down in a lawyer’s office, with a row of big 
volumes before him, and he’ll begin to hum and haw 
and talk platitudes to all who’ll listen. Who ever heard 
of a modest policeman or a plain-spoken lawyer? No, 
my dear Blythe, we like to deal with types, and when, 
in that most unusual circumstance, we meet with an 


JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 41 

individual who doesn’t act up to his costume, we don’t 
know what to make of him. For instance, take a 
criminal-” 

“ Well,” laughed Blythe, “ I should naturally set him 
down as a bad egg.” 

“ Precisely. And if you found a criminal who 
wasn’t a bad egg you’d be all at sea about him. That’s 
how society works. It dotes on costumes and labels. 
How revolutionary—and yet how refreshing it would 
be—if all the labels got mixed! ” 

So he chatted on, partly in earnest, partly in jest, 
until the car reached its terminus in the square before 
the railroad station at Newbridge. There the two men 
descended. There were few people about, for New¬ 
bridge was a small place, and almost all the business 
of the vicinity was transacted in Westminster. 

Still amusing himself and Blythe with an easy flow 
of talk, Calvert, who had taken upon himself the office 
of guide, strolled with his companion across the open 
square and went into the railroad station. Apparently 
no trains were due to arrive or depart at that hour in 
the afternoon, for there was no one in the waiting- 
room, and the ticket-seller, a woman, was reading a 
magazine behind the wicket. 

“ May I interrupt you a minute? ” said Calvert po¬ 
litely to the reader. “ Do any trains leave this station 
after ten o’clock at night? ” 



42 


CROOKED LANES 


The woman glanced up. “ Yes. There’s a ten- 
thirty to Philadelphia, and an eleven-eight to the 
west.” 

“ Do you happen to remember whether you sold a 
ticket for either of those trains last night to a man in 
a cap who had a light overcoat on his arm ? ” 

“ No, I didn’t. I wasn’t here last night. I go off 
duty at six o’clock.” 

“ Thanks very much.” The courteous words, how¬ 
ever, were wasted on the ticket-seller, who had imme¬ 
diately immersed herself in her magazine. 

“ How hard it is for real life to compete with fic¬ 
tion ! ” Calvert exclaimed, turning around to Blythe. 
“ One would think she’d be curious to know w T hy I 
asked such an unusual question; but not at all! She’s 
very much more interested in a wholly imaginary love 
affair between two imaginary people. However, that 
ought to please you, as a writer for the magazines.” 

Blythe laughed. “ She wasn’t reading my type of 
magazine. I don’t go in for thrillers.” 

“ You keep a sedate, quiet tone, do you, like this 
sleepy little town ? ” Calvert, now on the station plat¬ 
form, looked across the square at the row of small 
shops and dwellings, all drowsy in the mid-afternoon 
sun of summer. 

A policeman, strolling along the platform, stopped 
in neighborly fashion. “ It’s a fine day,” he said. 


JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 43 

“ Shouldn’t wonder if we got a thunder-storm by 
night.” 

“That so?” responded Calvert, in his pleasant, 
easy-going fashion. “ I suppose the weather, and the 
trains—coming and going—are the chief excitements 
hereabout.” 

The policeman grinned. He was glad of a chance 
to chat. “ Well, that’s about right,” he said. “ There 
ain’t very much doing here in Newbridge.” 

“ Were you around here last night, between ten and 
eleven ? ” asked Calvert. 

“ Yes, sir, I was. Did you lose something here? ” 

Calvert nodded. “We lost a man. In other words 
we want to know what became of a fellow wearing a 
cap who got off the Westminster trolley car about 
half-past ten. He may have taken the train to Phila¬ 
delphia or waited for the one west; or he may not 
have taken either. That’s a pretty large order, isn’t 
it?” 

“ It is that! ” laughed the policeman. He pondered 
the subject a moment. “No, I don’t remember seeing 
any man who answered to all that. But at ten-thirty 
there’s more doing around the station than there is 
now. Folks come here to talk things over. There’s 
one funny thing I remember seeing last night. A train 
pulled in—it must have been the one for Philadelphia— 
and a fellow came out of the waiting-room, looking as 


44 


CROOKED LANES 


if he was going to board it. Then a young woman— 
she’d been talking with a couple of other women— 
lamped him and ran over and caught him by the arm. 

‘ Hello, dearie/ she said, or something like that. 

‘ What are you doing here ? ’ The man turned round 
and stared at her. ‘ Why, hello! ’ he said; you know, 
the way a man does when he sees somebody he didn’t 
know was about and doesn’t care much about seeing. 
The girl hooked her arm in his and began to whisper. 
Then they walked along the platform, and I had to 
laugh. No, sir, he didn’t take that train; she wouldn’t 
let him. Talk about your kidnapping! ” 

Calvert smiled appreciatively. “ You don’t remem¬ 
ber what he looked like ? ” 

“No, I don’t Just an ordinary looking fellow. 
But, believe me, she wasn’t going to let him get 
away! ” 

Calvert nodded. “ How about the young woman ? 
Was she somebody who lives here? ” 

“ No, she don’t live around here. But I’ve seen her 
here before. I think she’s sister to Mrs. Simmons, 
whose husband keeps the drug-store. That’s her 
house, the third from the corner.” 

Calvert looked where the policeman pointed. 
“Well, you do have your little dramas, don’t you?” 
he said pleasantly. “ And so the young woman made 
him miss his train? And that reminds me,” he added 


45 


JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 

to Blythe, “ I guess we’d better be stepping along if 
we’re going to get back to Westminster before that 
thunder-storm.” 

“ Oh, it don’t look so much like it now,” said the 
policeman. “ Them thunder-heads are blowing off to 
the south.” 

The two men retraced their steps across the 
square. 

“ If you’ve no objection, Blythe,” said Calvert, “ I’d 
like to have a word with Mrs. Simmons’ sister.” 

“ Aren’t you taking a good deal for granted ? ” asked 
Blythe. “ I don’t see any logical connection between 
what happened at Sherwood and this policeman’s 
story. First of all, we don’t know whether the man 
who took the trolley had come from Caradine’s house; 
then we haven’t any reason to believe that he was the 
man the policeman saw. Do you suppose a man who’d 
committed murder would let a woman make him miss 
his train and keep him from getting away? ” 

“ My dear fellow,” said Calvert, “ I’m not suppos¬ 
ing anything at all,—as yet. Like our friend the police¬ 
man I’m just interested in what I see. You mustn’t 
pin me down to giving reasons for every step I take. 
Mrs. Simmons’ sister may be a delightful woman.” 

A pull at the door-bell of the third house from the 
corner produced, after a few minutes, a stout woman 
who welcomed the strangers with a resonant and com- 


46 


CROOKED LANES 


prehensive "Well?” To which Calvert, lifting his 
hat politely, responded, “ Are you Mrs. Simmons? ” 

“ Yes, I’m Mrs. Simmons,” was the answer. 

“ I’m looking for rooms to rent in Newbridge. A 
man at the railroad station pointed out your house; 
oh, no, he didn’t say that you rented rooms yourself, 
but we inferred from the things he said,—referring to 
you as the wife of the leading druggist of Newbridge, 
—that you might be able to give us some information 
as to where to look.” 

Mrs. Simmons was mollified. Any one would have 
been by the agreeably respectful tone and manner of 
this fresh-faced, well-dressed man. “ Let me 
see-” she began. 

“ He said something about your sister,” Calvert 
suggested. “ Possibly she-” 

“My sister doesn’t live here; she lives in West¬ 
minster.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t understand,” said Calvert, appearing 
a trifle embarrassed. “ The man mentioned something 
about seeing your sister at the railroad station last 
night—I thought he said something about her meeting 
her husband-” 

“ She isn’t married,” stated Mrs. Simmons. “ I 
was over there with her last evening. She went back 
to Westminster this morning. I don’t know what the 
man you were talking to could have meant. Oh, yes, 





JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 47 

she did happen to see somebody—some fellow she used 
to know.” 

“ Yes ? ” said Calvert in the tone that invites further 
information. 

Mrs. Simmons, however, could shut her lips tightly, 
and she did so now. She reflected a moment, and then 
she said, “ Mrs. Wilkins up to the corner—first road 
to the right—sometimes takes in boarders. She might 
have some rooms to rent. I don’t think of no one 
else.” And with that she shut the door. 

Calvert and Blythe walked toward the corner. 

“ Are we going to exchange a few pleasant words 
with Mrs. Wilkins? ” Blythe asked. 

His companion chuckled. “ No, sir, I’m not such 
an inveterate gossip as to want to pow-wow with the 
excellent Mrs. Wilkins. We’re walking this way to 
keep up appearances in case Mrs. Simmons should be 
looking from her window. I won’t keep you in New¬ 
bridge any longer. We’ll take the next trolley back to 
the inn.” 

At the Peacock, when they arrived there, a motor 
party was having tea on the porch, and the two men 
went indoors. In the sitting-room Joan Fordyce was 
talking with a gray-haired man, and as she caught 
sight of Blythe and Calvert she beckoned them to 
come in. 

“ This is Edward Grant,” she explained. “ He spent 


48 


CROOKED LANES 


last night at his brother's in Philadelphia, and a friend 
in Westminster telephoned him this morning what 
happened at Sherwood and he came right back. He 
saw Lieutenant Erdman, and then, hearing that Mr. 
Caradine’s cousin was staying here, he came out to 
see me. He says he left Sherwood last night about 
eight o'clock." 

Caradine’s servant was a respectable-looking fellow, 
and his gray eyes met those of Blythe and Calvert with 
what seemed an honest glance. “ I haven’t very much 
to tell you, gentlemen,” he said. “ I saw Mr. Caradine 
about half-past seven. I was out in the garage,— 
that’s what we called the stable that had been fixed 
up for his car,—working over one of the headlights 
that required adjusting. Mr. Caradine came to the 
door and said, as near as I can remember, 4 1 shan’t 
need you to-night, nor for a couple of days most 
likely. I’m planning a little trip. Suppose you take a 
holiday. Let me know where I can reach you and I’ll 
write you when to come back.’ ‘ Very good, sir,’ I 
said. ‘ You can reach me at my brother’s in Phila¬ 
delphia/ I gave him the name and address, and he 
wrote them down in his note-book.” 

Grant looked from the two men to Joan. “ As I 
was telling you, Miss Fordyce,” he continued, “ Mr. 
Caradine was a gentleman who made up his mind very 
quickly and he always knew exactly what he wanted. 


49 


JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 

Sometimes he used to surprise me with the things he 
said; but I accounted for that by the fact that he had 
been abroad so much—among strange kinds of peo¬ 
ple, to my way of thinking—and then I’ve been used 
to people who were what you might call very method¬ 
ical, a place for everything and everything in its place, 
in a manner of speaking. ‘ Very good, sir,’ I said to 
Mr. Caradine. ‘ But if you’re going on a trip, 
wouldn’t you like me to pack a bag for you? 9 ‘No, 
thank you,’ he said. ‘ I’ll look after that myself. 
Don’t work over that car any longer now, but start on 
your holiday.’ Then he walked off, and as soon as I’d 
tidied up the car a bit I went in, put some things in 
my bag, and took the path at the back that leads down 
to the trolley line.” 

“You didn’t see him in the study, or anywhere in 
the house, when you came downstairs? ” asked Blythe. 

“ No, sir, I didn’t. Mr. Caradine didn’t like to be 
interrupted in whatever he was doing. He’d told me 
to go along, and I always did what he said. Very 
well, sir, as I was saying, I went down to the trolley 
road, intending to take a car into Westminster. But 
I hadn’t been waiting more than a minute or two when 
a man in an automobile came along and asked if I’d 
like a lift to town. I said I would, and he took me as 
far as Main Street, and from there I walked to the 
station and caught the nine-thirty train for Phila- 


50 


CROOKED LANES 


delphia. I went to stay with my brother Joseph. Then 
this morning a friend of mine in Westminster, Perkins, 
the grocer on Hayes Street, telephoned me, and I came 
back.” Grant glanced again at Joan. “ And that’s all 
I know about what happened, Miss Fordyce.” 

“ There wasn’t any guest at Mr. Caradine’s last 
night? ” Blythe questioned. 

“ Not so far as I know, sir. He had dinner by him¬ 
self as usual at half-past six. He liked to dine early, 
and he wasn’t a hearty eater. He used to say that most 
people in this country paid altogether too much atten¬ 
tion to their meals.” 

“ And there wasn’t any other servant in the house ? ” 
Blythe continued. 

“ Not last night, sir. Mrs. Smithers, the only other 
person who was in Mr. Caradine’s employ, went away 
on a visit to her daughter, who’s been sick, four or 
five days ago.” 

“ You hadn’t seen any stranger, any one prowling 
about ? ” Blythe asked. 

Grant shook his head. “ No, sir, I hadn’t. It may 
seem odd, considering Mr. Caradine’s position, but 
there were very few people, either business people or 
guests, who came to his house. He spent a great deal 
of time in his study, and when he went out I don’t 
think he mixed much with people. I gathered that he 
wasn’t very fond of most of them.” 


JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 51 

“ Ah,” said Calvert, “ he talked to you about 
that?” 

“ He used to tell me something about the queer peo¬ 
ple he’d met on his travels, and sometimes he compared 
them with people here. He was very interesting on 
that subject. He had a way of making most people 
seem ridiculous.” Then, as though this remark might 
appear to be a criticism, Grant hastily added, “ But he 
was always most kind and sympathetic. I know sev¬ 
eral cases where he gave money to families in need.” 

Calvert nodded, but asked no further questions, and 
after a moment Joan said, “ It was very kind of you, 
Mr. Grant, to come out here to see me.” 

“ I was very devoted to Mr. Caradine, Miss For- 
dyce,” Grant answered. “ I’ve told the Lieutenant 
where he can reach me. But that’s all I know.” 

He bowed to the three, and withdrew from the 
room. As he stopped a moment in the hall to pick 
up his hat Blythe and Calvert joined him at the front 
door. 

“ Mr. Caradine had no enemies that you know of? ” 
Blythe asked. 

“ No, sir, not to my knowledge,” was the answer. 

“ And no intimate friends? ” put in Calvert. 

This the man considered. “ I don’t know that it’s 
my place to mention it,” he said, “ but I think there 
was a lady. I found a perfumed handkerchief in the 


52 


CROOKED LANES 


automobile once,—about two weeks ago,—and there 
were other things—little things—that I noticed several 
times. Mr. Caradine never spoke about her. It’s only 
my impression that he did know a lady.” 

“ And the lady lived somewhere about here, to judge 
from the handkerchief in the automobile,” Calvert sug¬ 
gested. 

“ I don’t know who she could be,” said Caradine’s 
servant with a gesture of his hand. “ But, as you say, 
she might very likely have been some one in West¬ 
minster.” 

A few moments later he was walking down the high¬ 
road. Calvert jingled a bunch of keys in his pocket. 
“ The wise servant—and that man is a wise servant, 
or I’m much mistaken—knows a good deal about his 
master’s personal affairs, more especially about those 
that have to do with a lady.”- He turned to Blythe. 
“ Why was there so much mystery about this lady, 
Blythe? Didn’t John Caradine ever write a letter to 
her and give it to his man to post? If he did, it’s 
probable that the man would have read the name and 
remembered it—certainly if he happened to read it 
several times. And I think Edward Grant would have 
told us the lady’s name, under the circumstances. 
Even the perfect servant would have broken his rule 
this time. That’s something about the Caradine affair 
to puzzle over.” 


JOHN CARADINE’S SERVANT 53 

“ Of course it’s probable a man like Caradine would 
have known several women,” Blythe suggested. 

“ I’m not interested in several,” said Calvert with a 
shrug, “ only in one, the particular one that Edward 
Grant remembered.” 




/ 


IV 


A PICTURE OF FANCY 

The next few days revealed little new concerning 
the tragic occurrence at Sherwood. The Coroner held 
an inquest, at which Blythe and Calvert and Edward 
Grant gave their evidence, and the jury’s verdict was 
that John Caradine had been shot by some unknown 
person. Joshua Mason represented Joan Fordyce, and 
attended to all the details that devolved on Caradine’s 
nearest relative and heir. He was a man of great tact, 
held in the highest esteem by all the community, and 
his diplomatic handling of a difficult situation won the 
thanks of Joan and her friends. 

The Police Lieutenant would not admit that his 
office had no clue to Caradine’s assailant, but he pro¬ 
duced no new information, and Mason and the people 
at the Peacock Inn concluded that that was the case. 
Joan, her relationship to Caradine having been fully 
substantiated by the lawyer, went over to Sherwood 
and, with the Eddys, Blythe and Calvert, explored the 
big, rambling house. So far as they could see John 
Caradine had brought nothing new to the mansion, 
with the exception of his South American trophies 


A PICTURE OF FANCY 


55 


and a great mass of scientific data, all of which were 
in the study. The house was as he had inherited it 
from his father, the wealthy mill-owner, whose por¬ 
trait adorned the study wall. There were no personal 
letters; a few on matters of business, some bills, sev¬ 
eral invitations; nothing that could serve as a link to 
connect John Caradine intimately with other people. 
And Mrs. Smithers, the housekeeper, when she came 
to Westminster, and Edward Grant, who had been 
engaged by Joan to take charge of Sherwood, both 
were positive in their statements that their master had 
never vouchsafed any information concerning his 
private affairs. 

The common belief in Westminster was that Cara¬ 
dine had been shot by a thief, whom he had inter¬ 
cepted prowling about his house; and on the face of 
the facts this seemed a plausible explanation. After¬ 
ward the thief had escaped, there being no one else in 
the house at the time; and the police had not been able 
to trace him. The affair was widely discussed for a 
week or two, and then Westminster turned its atten¬ 
tion to other things. At the Peacock, however, the 
tragic event that had taken place at Sherwood on the 
night of June third continued of paramount impor¬ 
tance. 

Calvert led in the discussions ; and, although he ad¬ 
mitted that he had no tangible evidence to support his 


56 


CROOKED LANES 


opinion, he made it clear that he did not accept the 
theory of a chance thief. “ There are a number of 
curious incidents,” he said, as they talked in the even¬ 
ing after they had gone over the house, “ that make 
me wonder if there isn’t some other explanation. 
Doesn’t it strike you all as strange that John Caradine 
should have sent his servant away on that particular 
night? It seems to me that it would have been more 
natural for him to tell Grant he might leave in the 
morning; not to send him away at once, which, ac¬ 
cording to Grant, is practically what he did.” 

“ Suppose some thief had found out that there 
wasn’t any servant there that evening?” Agnes sug¬ 
gested. 

“ Grant tells me,” said Calvert, “ that the only per¬ 
sons he spoke to before he took the train at West¬ 
minster were the man who gave him a lift on the road 
and the ticket-seller at the station, and he didn’t tell 
either of them who he was or anything about his busi¬ 
ness. I thoroughly believe in Grant’s honesty. Now 
it doesn’t seem to strike him as queer that Mr. Cara¬ 
dine sent him away in that abrupt fashion; but I’ll own 
that it does raise a flock of questions in my mind.” 

“ You didn’t know John Caradine, and he did,” said 
Eddy. “ He was used to his abrupt ways.” 

Calvert puffed at his pipe and thoughtfully watched 
a smoke-ring float up to the ceiling. “ Those who are 


A PICTURE OF FANCY 


57 


close to the trees can’t see the forest,” he observed. 
“ Grant takes everything Mr. Caradine did as a matter 
of course. I see him from a different angle. He was 
an unusual man; I agree to that; but even unusual 
people have a reason for the things they do. It looks 
to me as if Mr. Caradine wanted to be alone at Sher¬ 
wood that evening.” 

“ Well, assume that he did,” said Blythe. “ What’s 
the next step? ” 

“ Then,” said Calvert, with the smile that played 
about his lips when he was following an interesting 
train of thought, “ he didn’t want to be alone in the 
house simply to work in his study, or pack his bag. 
On my theory he wasn’t going out; if he had been, he 
wouldn’t have minded Grant being there. He was 
going to stay in, and he didn’t want to be observed. 
Why? Well, let us say that it was because some one 
was coming to see him, and he didn’t want Grant to be 
a witness.” 

Agnes glanced at Joan, who was following Calvert 
intently. “ That sounds rather—well, rather under¬ 
hand, doesn’t it? ” she objected. 

“ I didn’t mean it to,” said Calvert. “ But if Miss 
Fordyce would prefer-” 

“ No, no,” Joan interrupted. “ I’m very much in¬ 
terested in what you’re saying. Please go on.” 

“ Very well. Bear in mind that I’m not telling you 



58 CROOKED LANES 

what did happen, but only following a line of reason¬ 
ing. Suppose some one was coming to see him— 
suppose that some one did come. That might have a 
good deal of bearing on the pistol shot.” 

“ He might have quarreled with some one, you 
mean?” interjected Eddy. 

“ He might have,” agreed Calvert. “ But since I 
picture John Caradine as an unusually self-controlled 
man, it occurs to me as more likely that his caller 
quarreled with him.” 

“ Well, now, I shouldn’t be at all surprised!” ex¬ 
claimed Eddy. “ That’s a logical line of deduction! ” 
And he nodded his approval at the fresh-faced man 
who lounged in the easy-chair. 

Calvert’s eyes were quizzical as they regarded the 
four people who were listening to him with such at¬ 
tention. 

“ All very well,” he responded. “ But we have noth¬ 
ing tangible to help us reconstruct the cause of a quar¬ 
rel in the study.” He mused a moment. “ I might, 
of course, fashion a picture of fancy.” And he looked 
inquiringly at Joan. 

“ Please do,” she said. “ Please talk as if I wasn’t 
a cousin of John Caradine. Discussion may help us 
to something.” 

“ It’s pure fancy then, remember,” said Calvert. 
“ The sort of argument that a man like Lieutenant 


A PICTURE OF FANCY 


59 


Erdman or a lawyer wouldn’t listen to for a minute.” 
For a short space he smoked, evidently arranging his 
thoughts. “ Suppose that John Caradine was inter¬ 
ested in some woman. You remember the scented 
handkerchief that Grant found in the car. What is it 
that men are apt to quarrel over? Various things, of 
course. But what is the one thing most likely to lead 
to bad blood? A woman, nine times out of ten. I 
can very well believe that such a man as John Cara¬ 
dine, with his romantic background, would have been 
very attractive to women; and also that he, in spite 
of his aloof nature, might have been very strongly 
drawn to some woman. Given the opportunity, any 
man will fall in love, I don’t care who he is.” 

“ That’s so,” agreed Eddy. “And all the more so 
in the case of a man like Caradine, who’d been away 
from his own kind of people for so long. As soon as 
you mentioned his wanting to get Grant out of the 
way, I thought there might be a woman concerned.” 

“ Concerned, yes,” said Calvert. “ But I don’t pic¬ 
ture her as calling at his house that evening. A woman 
wouldn’t have been apt to go there to see him; he would 
have gone somewhere else to meet her. But a man who 
was interested in the same woman might very well have 
gone there and quarreled with him about her. A 
woman—yes; a woman Caradine had taken riding in 
his car; a woman he was careful never to mention to his 


60 


CROOKED LANES 


servant, never to telephone or to write to, so far as his 
servant knew; and a woman some other man was very 
much in love with. The other man asks Caradine for 
an appointment, and Caradine says he will see him at 
Sherwood that evening; Caradine, pursuing his policy 
of silence where the woman is concerned, doesn’t want 
Grant to see the man or overhear their talk, and so 
sends him away; the other man comes and their talk 
leads to a quarrel—there’s a situation that might ex¬ 
plain it all.” 

“ And there’s another thing,” said Blythe. “ Grant 
told us that John Caradine said something about going 
away the next day, but didn’t give him any details. 
He might have been going away with the lady of the 
handkerchief.” 

“Possibly,” said Calvert; “I hadn’t pictured 
that.” 

“ But how fearfully reckless,” put in Agnes, “ for 
him to have let a man like that, a man who would 
carry a revolver, come to his house when he had no 
servant there! ” 

“ Yes,” admitted Calvert. “ And Pm not of the 
opinion that Caradine was a man who took unneces¬ 
sary risks. Explorers rarely are. Well, as I said in 
the first place, I was merely constructing a picture of 
fancy. That is, at least, one way in which to account 
for his sending Grant away that night. And the 


A PICTURE OF FANCY 


61 


police, so far as I know, have made no attempt to 

explain that.” 

“ And can’t we do anything more with your 
theory? ” asked Joan. 

“ Find me the woman, or the man,” was the imme¬ 
diate answer. “A man who’s a jealous lover; and a 
woman who was very fond of John Caradine.” 

There, however, since none of them could produce 
such persons, the discussion had to rest. 

In his own room that night, when the others had 
gone to bed, Calvert sat at his little table, his brow 
puckered in thought. Such a discussion as he had 
taken part in that evening was all very well in its way, 
—the conjectures of a number of people, seeing an 
affair from different angles, often led to interesting 
theories,—but this case was a matter of business with 
him, and it was up to him to solve it. For Hamilton 
Calvert was a secret agent, and he had been sent to 
Westminster by his private detective company to trace 
the movements of a number of individuals who were 
suspected of having been involved in crimes elsewhere. 
There was a band of these crooks, and a bank in De¬ 
troit was interested in learning what they were up to. 
So far nothing could actually be proved against them; 
but their detection in a new crime would aid in un¬ 
raveling former ones. 


62 


CROOKED LANES 


That was the real reason for Calvert’s presence at 
the inn. And he had hardly more than become fa¬ 
miliar with the lay of the land when a crime had been 
committed, almost at his doorstep. That crime, the 
shooting of John Caradine, a man of large wealth, 
Calvert had cause to put to the account of the band 
of malefactors he was hunting. He had not expected 
such a crime, he would not have supposed the crooks 
would go to such a length; but from long experience 
he was used to unanticipated acts by criminals. 

Now he drew from his table-drawer a map and sev¬ 
eral sheets of paper covered with memoranda. He 
studied these, and as he did so his face was not amia¬ 
ble, as his friends knew it, but concentrated and stern. 
“ Caradine,” so he pondered, “ was a very rich man, 
and a good deal of a hermit. And here on the list is 
another very wealthy citizen of Westminster, a man 
by the name of Odin Welsh. And then—let me see.” 
He ran over his notes. “ Here is Charles Prestwick, 
rated as a millionaire, in Northfield.” 

He glanced at the map. “ Northfield? . . . 

Here it is, beyond Newbridge. . . . I’ve no doubt 

the gang would hunt as far as Northfield, if they could 
find good picking.” He considered this thought for 
some time. “ But I can’t watch Northfield as well as 
Westminster. I must have some one over there. I’ll 
write the company to let me have Ellen Massey, and 


A PICTURE OF FANCY 63 

locate her at Northfield. She’s a clever girl, and can 
find out what’s doing there.” 

Apparently satisfied with this arrangement, he put 
the papers in the drawer, walked to the window and 
stared out into the summer night. “We must give 
them time,” he reflected, “ and considerable rope. If 
we jump too soon we won’t get them red-handed. 
And meanwhile the Peacock Inn is an excellent place 
for my headquarters. Miss Fordyce—I can suggest 
something for her to do. And Blythe—I can manage 
him.” 

He smiled at some recollection. “ How useful the¬ 
ories are when one wants to camouflage facts.” Then 
he frowned. “ But facts, real important facts, are as 
rare in this case so far as strawberries in December.” 


V 


JOAN OPENS AN OFFICE 

The Peacock Inn was doing a flourishing business 
when Joan Fordyce returned a fortnight later. She 
had been to Boston, and closed her apartment. What 
had happened at Sherwood had caused her to alter her 
plans, and she felt that her new responsibilities as the 
heir to the Caradine estate required her presence in 
Westminster. She was also eager to carry out the 
wish that her cousin had expressed in the paper Joshua 
Mason had read her, to do something to help the 
poor of the town where his money had originally been 
made. For this purpose she planned to open a little 
office, paying the expenses of it out of her own pocket, 
until such time as she might come into possession of 
funds from the estate. 

On her return she took a room at the Peacock, prem¬ 
ier ring its pleasant atmosphere and the company of 
her friends to the loneliness of Sherwood. Somewhat 
to her surprise, she found that Hamilton Calvert was 
still there, apparently amusing himself after his own 
fashion. 

As for Roger Blythe, he had gone back to New 


JOAN OPENS AN OFFICE 65 

York, and tried to do some writing. But the city was 
hot, and he couldn’t keep what he called “ the Caradine 
affair” out of his thoughts. From thinking of that 
it was not a long step to thinking of the dark-haired 
girl who was the explorer’s cousin. So he wrote to 
Eddy asking if he had a vacant room, and his friend 
replied that Roger might have the south chamber. 

Upstairs, in Blythe’s room, on his arrival Eddy let 
slip the information that Joan also was again a guest. 
“ And Hamilton Calvert is still here, prowling around 
the country.” 

Blythe glanced at his friend, wondering if there was 
any ulterior meaning in this juxtaposition of names. 

“ Well,” said he, “ has Calvert found out anything 
new about the affair at Sherwood?” 

“ Not that I know of,” Eddy answered. “ He 
seems very much interested in this social service work 
that Joan has taken up in Westminster. John Cara¬ 
dine wanted some of his money spent that way, I be¬ 
lieve.” 

“ Yes, I remember,” said Blythe, thinking of the 
interview in Mason’s office. “ It’s a fine work, of 
course. Though it doesn’t sound very amusing. I 
hope Miss Fordyce isn’t one of these new women, 
business before everything else.” 

“ New woman or old, she’s a mighty fine girl,” 
Eddy retorted. “ It would do you good, old moss- 


66 


CROOKED LANES 


back, to get some nezv ideas into your head! Maybe, 
if you’re good, she’ll let you help her in some of her 
investigating. And remember that in every woman, 
no matter how you may label her, there’s a bit of 
Eve.” 

Joan appeared glad to see the new arrival, and so 
did Calvert, who asked no reasons for Blythe’s return 
to the inn. And on the next morning, when Blythe, 
lounging in the sitting-room after breakfast, saw Joan 
come downstairs, wearing her hat and with gloves in 
her hand, and asked if he might accompany her to 
town, she amiably agreed. 

The two took the trolley-car to Westminster. “ I’m 
very much interested in this town,” Joan explained to 
her companion. “ I’ve never thought much about the 
problems of small communities,—I suppose that’s be¬ 
cause I’ve always lived in a big city,—but Mr. Calvert, 
in his funny, roundabout way, has pointed out to me 
a number of interesting things in Westminster. He 
says it’s a beautiful example of the feudal system 
transferred to America. The nobles live in their big 
country places up here on the hill, and the serfs are 
down in the little streets of the village. The nobles 
have made their wealth out of the labor of the 
serfs-” 

“ Hold on now—that isn’t fair,” Blythe broke in. 
‘‘The nobles had to make good use of their brains; 



JOAN OPENS AN OFFICE 67 

and it’s they who’ve provided the others with work to 
do.” 

“ Oh, I’m sure you know a great deal more about it 
than I do,” Joan assented, smiling. “ I only put it 
that way, using Mr. Calvert’s simile, because it was 
picturesque. But what he pointed out has interested 
me in the town; and then I feel that since I’m to have 
the use of the Caradine money I ought to do some good 
with it here in Westminster. That’s what Cousin John 
wanted.” 

“ I think that’s a very nice way to feel about it,” 
Blythe readily agreed. “ The lady of the castle never 
showed to greater advantage than when she was en¬ 
gaged in works of benevolence.” 

“ You like picturesque similes too, don’t you? ” said 
Joan. “ Well, I found they had a small Social Service 
Society with offices on Washington Street. The offices 
are in an old brick dwelling that’s been altered for 
business purposes, and there was one room, all fitted 
up, that happened to be vacant. I’ve rented that room 
for a month. I’m not connected with the Society in 
any official way, but they send me some of their ap¬ 
plicants for aid, a'nd I talk with them, and study their 
stories, and try to find out how money could be best 
spent to help them and to improve the community.” 
She glanced at Blythe, a smile in her frank, gray eyes. 
“ That sounds pretty pretentious, doesn’t it ? It’s not, 


68 CROOKED LANES 

really. I haven’t learned very much yet. But I am 
interested.” 

Blythe nodded, smiling back at her. No, he de¬ 
cided, Joan Fordyce was not one of these aggressive 
new women; she was much too pretty and dainty to 
come within that category. 

“ I think that’s mighty fine of you,” he said. 

“ It’s not fine of me at all. I want to do something, 
and I can’t run an inn like Agnes.” 

“ Well, I think you’ve taken up a good line,” he said 
judicially. “ I suppose Mr. Calvert thinks so too,” he 
added. 

“ He and I talk over some of my adventures in the 
evenings,” said Joan, “ and he gives me his advice as 
to how to handle the cases.” 

Then and there Blythe decided that he would also 
have a hand in ladling out advice, and when the car 
stopped at the head of Washington Street and they 
descended he said, “ Would you mind if I came along 
with you and had a look at your office ? ” 

“ I’d like you to see it. And maybe I’ll let you talk 
with some of my people—if you’re interested.” 

They walked down the street, a typical small city 
mixture of dwellings and business fronts, and at a 
corner came to the brick building that was Joan’s goal. 
On the lower floor was a drug-store; and a flight of 
stairs led to the converted offices above. A door on the 


69 


JOAN OPENS AN OFFICE 

right bore the sign of the Westminster. Social Service 
Society. Joan took a key from her hand-bag and un¬ 
locked the door opposite. “ There, sir,” she said. 
“ Enter my private sanctum.” 

The room was furnished with a flat-top desk, a type¬ 
writer on a stand, a row of filing-cases, a number of 
plain chairs, and a hat-rack. A fireplace and a win¬ 
dow-seat were evidences of its former residential 
use. 

“ Make yourself at home,” said Joan. “ And please 
smoke, if you care to. If you’ll excuse me, Fll go get 
my mail and any papers they may have for me at the 
Society office.” 

She went across the hall, and Blythe lit a cigarette. 
This rather bare room, this rather unromantic occupa¬ 
tion, seemed to him a stupid setting for such a young 
woman as Joan Fordyce on a beautiful summer day. 
How much better to be rambling in the country with 
him! However, since this was her fancy, he. would 
make it his fancy too. Apparently Calvert limited 
himself to discussing the day’s events with her in the 
evening. Roger Blythe would engage himself more 
actively in her interests. 

Fie walked to the window, and opened it, to let in 
the fresh air. Washington Street was fairly busy, and 
it amused him, in Joan’s absence, to watch what was 
going on. A policeman, on the opposite corner, was 


70 CROOKED LANES 

flirting with two country girls, one rather pretty and 
forward, the other, more shy, evidently held by her 
bolder companion’s hand. A pompous fellow came 
out from a bank, and strutted off, doubtless picturing 
himself a person of financial importance. Two 
women, with paper shopping-bags on their arms, 
stopped to look at the wonderful array of bargains in 
the window of a flve-and-ten cent store. A man with 
a trim, pointed beard came along, apparently in a 
brown study. He passed the bank, and then glanced 
over his shoulder. Two men were coming out. The 
bearded man stepped into a doorway and watched the 
men go by him. They didn’t see him; but he was 
watching them. Why? Blythe wondered. 

The man stood in the doorway several minutes. 
Then the door behind him opened, and a slim, seedy- 
looking fellow came out. He took a good look at 
the bearded man, craning his neck to get a glimpse of 
his face. He laid a hand on the other’s shoulder, say¬ 
ing something to him. The bearded man shook the 
hand off, and appeared to answer angrily. The slim 
fellow continued to talk, banteringly it seemed to 
Blythe. Finally the bearded man lost patience, shook 
his head, made some threat, and stepped out on the 
sidewalk again. Blythe, now very much interested, 
saw that he was crossing the street, as if making for 
the stairs of the Social Service Society. 


JOAN OPENS AN OFFICE 71 

K 

Blythe turned. Joan was coming back into the 
room, her hands full of papers. 

“ I have a lot of things here to attend to,” she said. 
“ You must help me sort them.” 

“ Gladly,” said Blythe, taking some of the papers 
and putting them on the desk. 

Joan had left the door open, and now there was the 
sound of steps in the hall. Looking round, Blythe saw 
the man with the trim, pointed beard standing in the 
doorway. 

“ Excuse me,” said the stranger, “ but did a Mrs. 
Cora Madison call here yesterday? ” 

The voice was polite. Joan turned, and scrutinized 
the stranger. “ Yes, she did,” she answered. 

“ Well,” said the man, stepping into the room, “ you 
don’t want to believe everything that woman tells you. 
You’d better investigate her stories.” 

“ Why do you come here to tell me about her ? ” 
asked Joan. “ Who are you ? ” 

The man had an attractive, intelligent face, and his 
dark brown beard gave him a distinguished appear¬ 
ance. He smiled now as he took off his straw hat. 
“ My name is William Buell,” he said. 

“ How did you know that Mrs. Madison had called 
here? ” Joan questioned. 

“ I saw her come in yesterday; I saw her sitting at 
your window.” 


72 


CROOKED LANES 


“ And what have you to tell me about her? ” Joan 
continued. 

“ I only want to say: don’t believe everything she 
tells you.” 

“ Of course Miss Eordyce uses discretion,” said 
Blythe, who felt that it was time he took part in the 
conversation. 

“ Miss Fordyce?” echoed William Buell. “ Miss 
Joan Fordyce? ” He nodded. “ I’ve heard of you.” 

“ And I,” said Blythe, “ happened to be standing 
at this window when you had your little argument 
with the man in the doorway opposite. Do you watch 
every one who comes in here, Mr. Buell? ” 

The other man looked embarrassed; Blythe’s tone 
had implied a certain criticism. 

“ No, certainly I don’t,” he answered. “ As for that 
man you saw—he tried to be offensive. I didn’t know 
who he was.” 

Blythe, however, wasn’t altogether satisfied. 
“ Well, how did it happen that you saw Mrs. Madison 
come in here yesterday and watched her at this win¬ 
dow ? And why should Miss Fordyce take your word 
about her ? ” 

Buell smiled. “ Of course you have a perfect right 
to ask such questions. I’m here—in Westminster— 
as a private detective.” 

“ Oh,” said Blythe, “that’s it, is it? I noticed you 


JOAN OPENS AN OFFICE 73 

had your eye on two men who came out of the 
bank.” 

“ Yes,” admitted Buell. “ I’m here on private busi¬ 
ness, and my investigating has supplied me with in¬ 
formation about a number of people. I beg that 
neither of you will give my business away.” 

“ Of course not,” agreed Joan. 

“ We’ll keep mum,” said Blythe. And he added as 
an afterthought: “I should think the Westminster 
police would need some outside aid. They don’t seem 
to have made much progress toward clearing up the 
crime that happened at Sherwood. I suppose you’ve 
heard of that affair? ” 

Buell indicated that he had. Looking at Blythe, he 
asked: “ What is your name? ” 

“ Roger Blythe. I’m staying at the Peacock Inn, 
where Miss Fordyce is also. If you have any spare 
time, I wish you’d come out and give us the benefit 
of your views on that case.” 

“ I’d like to talk with Miss Fordyce and you,” the 
other man assented. “ In the meantime, my sugges¬ 
tion is that you go slowly with Mrs. Madison.” Bow¬ 
ing to Joan, he turned toward the door. 

Blythe, however, was considerably interested in this 
caller. “ Where can I find you? ” he asked. 

“ At 183 Fairview Street,” Buell answered. And, 
putting on his hat, he disappeared down the stairs. 


74 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Mighty interesting fellows, these detectives,” 
Blythe remarked to Joan. “ Well, it seems there’s 
something crooked going on in Westminster/’ 

“ I thought this man looked more intelligent than 
Lieutenant Erdman,” said Joan. 

Her companion nodded. “ I’m going to have an¬ 
other talk with him.” He jotted down Buell’s address 
in his pocket note-book. 


VI 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 

Blythe followed up his intention of having a talk 
with William Buell by calling at 183 Fairview Street 
the next morning. He came into town with Joan, but 
left her at her office door, and, having made inquiries 
at the drug-store, set out for the detective’s address. 
Fairview Street, he found, belied its name, being a 
small and inconspicuous thoroughfare of shabby brick 
dwellings. The glimpse of a park at the end of its 
single block, however, was evidence that it might once 
have had some justification for its title. 

A small girl informed him that she thought Mr. 
Buell was in, and told Blythe to go up to the second 
floor front Buell answered Blythe’s knock on the 
door, and shook hands with his caller, saying that he 
had only a few moments before returned from break¬ 
fasting at a neighboring cafeteria. “ Come in,” said 
Buell, and Blythe did so, accepting the detective’s in¬ 
vitation to seat himself in one of the two chairs of the 
small room. 

“ Miss Fordyce and I were very much interested in 


76 


CROOKED LANES 


what you said yesterday/' Blythe began. “ Miss 
Fordyce is the heiress of the Caradine estate; John 
Caradine was her cousin.” 

“ I knew of the relationship,” said Buell. “ And 
she has just recently opened this office? ” 

“ Yes. She has taken up this social work in West¬ 
minster,” Blythe continued, “ partly because she feels 
a certain obligation to do so. She’s interested in it, 
of course; but Mr. Mason, who was Caradine’s lawyer, 
showed her a paper in which her cousin spoke of his 
desire that something should be done for the poor peo¬ 
ple of the community in which the family money had 
been made. She’s feeling her way at present; she 
hasn’t had much experience in this particular line.” 

“ It’s lucky I put her on guard against Mrs. Madi¬ 
son,” said Buell. 

“ What I am particularly interested in,” Blythe went 
on, “ is trying to find out who shot John Caradine;— 
and naturally Miss Fordyce is also.” 

“ You knew him, I suppose? ” 

“ No; but I had heard a good deal of his adventures 
among the wild tribes of the Amazon. I admired him 
immensely. I had an appointment to meet him—I 
wanted to get material for some magazine articles— 
on the morning after he was shot at Sherwood.” 

Buell rose and walked to the window, his hands 
stuck in the pockets of his coat. “ I’ve thought about 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 77 

that affair a little myself. The circumstances were 
such as to pique one's curiosity. ,, 

“Yes?” said Blythe eagerly. He found himself 
very much attracted by this quiet, intelligent man. 

“ Has it occurred to you-” continued Buell. 

“ But of course it hasn’t,” he added, turning around 
from the window. “ It’s one of my foolish tricks to 
get the cart before the horse in talking of these mat¬ 
ters. What I mean is that it has occurred to me that 
there may be some connection between the Caradine 
case and these other affairs that I’ve come to West¬ 
minster to ferret out.” 

“ That hadn’t occurred to me,” said Blythe, “ be¬ 
cause I haven’t any idea what you’re doing in West¬ 
minster.” 

Buell laughed, and that beginning served to bring 
the two men to a friendly footing. He opened a box 
of cigars and struck a match for his caller. “ I’m 
not going into all the ramifications of my business 
here,” he said when he was again seated. “ There’s 
crooked work afoot, and I’m trying to unravel it. I’d 
be glad of your help, in certain directions. And I- 
think it might be worth your while to join forces with 
me, because in a way Miss Fordyce might be con¬ 
cerned.” 

“Miss Fordyce! Through her charity work?” 

“ I meant as John Caradine’s heiress. Money often 



78 


CROOKED LANES 


makes its owners targets for unscrupulous people. 
Caradine himself, for example-” 

“ You think he was shot by a robber? But, so far 
as we know, nothing was stolen.” 

“ No; but his enemy—whoever he was—may have 
intended to profit, but was, as it turned out, circum¬ 
vented.” 

“ You think it was a crime, deliberately planned? ” 

“ I think there are,—or were,—people here in West¬ 
minster who were capable of it,” was the enigmatic 
answer. 

“ Do you think there was a woman involved ? ” 

Buell glanced at Blythe sharply. “ What put that 
in your head ? ” 

“ Why, that’s the theory of a chap at the Peacock 
Inn, a man by the name of Calvert. He bases it on 
the fact that Caradine’s man Grant once found a lady’s 
handkerchief in his master’s automobile.” 

The detective laughed. “ I base my theories on less 
flimsy facts than a lady’s handkerchief. Yes, I think 
there may have been a woman involved; but not a 
friend of Caradine’s. A friend of the other man, the 
one who did the shooting. She might have profited 
incidentally, if the plan succeeded.” 

Blythe saw that his new acquaintance had very evi¬ 
dently given careful consideration to what had hap¬ 
pened at Sherwood and had very definite opinions in 



THE LOST MR. LUNT 


Y9 


regard to it. Apparently he did not think that the 
shooting of Caradine was the result of a chance en¬ 
counter with a thief, but something that had been 
planned, that had had an ulterior object in view; that 
object, however, having failed of attainment—so far, 
at least,—owing to unforeseen circumstances. More¬ 
over, Buell evidently did not think that the shooting 
was the result of a quarrel over a woman, a theory that 
Blythe himself had never taken much stock in. John 
Caradine, the explorer, as Blythe had pictured him, 
was not the type of man to allow himself to become 
entangled in a melodramatic love affair. 

What then was the detective’s opinion? As Blythe 
was considering whether he could with propriety ask 
that question, the other man anticipated him. “ I’m 
not going to tell you all I think about this, because 
I want you to help me without having any precon¬ 
ceived prejudices. Does the proposition interest you, 
as a friend of Miss Fordyce? ” 

“ As her friend; and on my own account,—im¬ 
mensely,” answered Blythe. 

“ Very well. You’ve never seen this Mrs. Cora 
Madison, have you? ” 

“ I’ve never laid eyes on her.” 

“ Well, I’d like to have you meet her. Then you 
may be able to give Miss Fordyce some first-hand 
advice.” 


80 


CROOKED LANES 


They left the house and went down Fairview Street 
in the direction of the park at its southern end. Here 
children were playing on the grass, a baseball game 
was in progress on a well-worn diamond, people were 
lounging on benches, basking in the sun. “ Towns do 
grow up helter-skelter, don’t they ? ” said Buell, stop¬ 
ping a moment on the park-side of the road. “ Busi¬ 
ness clusters in the centre, around it are circles and 
circles of houses, some dull and respectable, some gay 
and questionable, hit or miss for the most part, and 
then all varieties of suburbs. This park here is a sort 
of a clearing-house; over that way is the hill with its 
country-places, this other way is the region of semi¬ 
detached villas, furnished on the installment plan 
mostly, but strong for music-boxes and flivvers/’ 

They skirted the park toward the semi-detached 
villas. Blythe saw a smart-looking automobile coming 
in their direction, a chauffeur on the front seat, a very 
pretty lady in the rear. “ That clearly belongs up on 
the hill,” he said. “ That turn-out, lady and all, would 
do justice to Fifth Avenue.” 

Buell glanced up; then, to Blythe’s surprise, delib¬ 
erately faced the other way. “ You come from New 
York, don’t you?” said he. “That’s your standard 
of appraisement. Fifth Avenue—that means the high¬ 
est praise.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Blythe with a laugh. “ I’m not so 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 


81 


provincial as all that. But that woman would certainly 
look charming anywhere.” 

The automobile had passed, and now Buell turned 
and looked after it. He seemed thoughtful and reflec¬ 
tive, and when they walked on again he made no fur¬ 
ther comment. But Blythe, considering the incident, 
felt convinced that the detective had purposely turned 
his head so that the woman should not recognize him. 
Who was the woman? She did not look, in Blythe’s 
opinion, as if she could possibly be involved in any 
underhand affair. 

“ Mrs. Cora Madison,” remarked Buell, after a few r 
moments of silence, “ lives in one of these semi-de¬ 
tached villas. And there’s very little that goes on in 
Westminster that she doesn’t know all about.” 

“ Miss Fordyce told me,” said Blythe, “ that Mrs. 
Madison didn’t come to her to ask for anything 
for herself, but for certain people she’s interested 

• ft 

in. 

“ Oh, yes, the kind-hearted creature! Well, I don’t 
doubt she’s interested in certain people; but not in 
the way she represented to Miss Fordyce. However, 
you shall judge for yourself. That’s her house with 
the pink gingerbread roof.” 

The call on Mrs. Madison, however, as it turned 
out, was indefinitely postponed; for at this point a 
voice behind them called out, “ Wait a minute, Bill 


82 


CROOKED LANES 


Buell! ” and turning, they saw a young woman in a 
large straw hat with a big cherry-colored ribbon round 
the brim, hurrying after them. 

“ Take your cue from me,” whispered Buell. 

The young woman caught up with them. Her face 
was flushed. She had brown eyes, and her lips were 
red and curving. She was an exuberant person and 
very gaily dressed, as full of color from the crown of 
her hat to the soles of her slippers as a poppy-bed in 
bloom. 

“ Hello, Bill! ” she exclaimed. “ What’s your 
hurry ? ” And she glanced with interest at the tall 
man beside him in the well-cut Norfolk coat. 

“ I’m not in a hurry, Nancy,” Buell responded 
pleasantly. “ I wouldn’t run away from you. I want 
you to meet my friend, Mr. Blythe of New York. 
Miss Nancy Hackett.” 

Blythe took off his hat, and shook the hand the 
young woman extended. “ Mr. Buell’s showing me 
about,” he said, smiling. 

“ Leave off the mister, Roger,” said Buell. 

“ Showing you about, is he? ” said Nancy Hackett. 
“ Bill’s a good one to do that! He’s been here so long 
himself,—let’s see—is it two or three days? ” 

“ But I’m quick at picking up information,” Buell 
protested humorously. 

" Such conceit!” returned Nancy. “Well, Mr. 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 


83 


Blythe, if you really want some one to show you about, 
you’d better engage me.” 

Several things had become apparent to Blythe in the 
course of this short conversation. Buell was on fairly 
intimate terms with this vivacious young woman, a 
type—so Blythe considered—that he should not have 
expected Buell to be intimate with. In addition, the 
detective evidently wanted it to appear that Blythe and 
he were old friends,—hence the “ leave off the mister, 
Roger,” that he had given Blythe as a cue. And 
thirdly Blythe was under the impression that Nancy 
Hackett was considerably interested in William Buell. 

“ That’s right, Roger,” Buell was saying. “ You 
had better let Nancy show you round.” 

“ Suppose you both come back with me to my 
house,” suggested Miss Hackett. “We can have a 
nice chat and decide where we’ll go to lunch.” 

Blythe expected his friend to decline this invitation, 
but instead Buell accepted. “ Nothing we’d like to do 
better,” he agreed. “ Roger’s seen enough for this 
morning. We’ll talk things over till it’s time to go out 
to lunch.” 

They walked back with Nancy to her villa, which, 
as she explained to Buell, belonged to a Mr. and Mrs. 
Sampson, with whom she lodged. “ I’m taking a little 
rest-cure at present,” she said with a smile which dis¬ 
played an attractive dimple. “ I worked in an office 


84 


CROOKED LANES 


in town most of the winter. There are a couple of 
offers I’m considering now, but I think first I’ll go 
down to Atlantic City for a week or two.” 

Nancy’s villa had a porch on the second floor, 
reached by a door from the hall. Here the three en¬ 
sconced themselves in comfortable chairs, and Nancy 
produced cigarettes. 

Their hostess was exceedingly lively, she chaffed 
Buell with an air of proprietorship that amused Blythe, 
and then she chaffed Blythe with the manner of one 
who was used to making quick acquaintanceships. 
Buell also was talkative, and presently, with a wink 
and a nod at Nancy, he indicated Blythe with a ges¬ 
ture of his thumb. “ He’s a good scout,” he said. 
“ He used to see a lot of your friend Sam, when Sam 
went to New York.” 

“ That so ? ” said the girl, regarding Blythe with 
new interest. “ You don’t happen to know where he 
is now, do you? ” 

“No, I don’t,” answered Blythe, deciding that that 
was the safest reply he could make concerning a man 
he had never heard of before. 

“Did he have any girls in New York?” was 
Nancy’s next question. 

“Well,” temporized Blythe, “he didn’t talk about 
them to me. He kept pretty quiet about the ladies.” 

“ Yes,” mused Nancy, puffing her cigarette and ad- 


85 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 

miring her trim silk-shod ankles perched on a wicker 
stool, “ that was like Sam Lunt. He never talked 
any more than he had to. He wasn’t like Bill here. 
Of course he enjoyed a good time, but he didn’t mix 
pleasure with business. He used to say, ‘ If you call 
me up on the ’phone at the bank, I’ll never take you 
out again.’ ” 

“ He was one of the tellers at the bank here,” Buell 
explained to his companion. 

“ At the Commercial on Washington Street,” Nancy 
amended. “ He’d been there a couple of years before 
he went away.” 

“ They must have been sorry to lose him,” Blythe 
ventured at random. 

“ Of course they were.” Nancy fixed her brown 
eyes on Blythe’s face. “ Any bank would be sorry 
to lose such a steady, hard-working man as Sam. One 
of the clerks told me they never had the least fault 
to find with him. They thought he’d be back in a 
week or so, and were keeping his position for him.” 

“ I don’t think Roger knows the circumstances of 
Sam’s disappearance,” put in Buell. 

“ No, I don’t,” said Blythe, hoping to obtain some 
information about this mysterious man whom he was 
supposed to know. 

“Well,” said Nancy, “you see it was this way. 
Sam got a wire from New York one day early in 


86 


CROOKED LANES 


June—the telegram said some relative of his was sick 
there, and wanted to see him—and he ’phoned the bank 
that he’d have to be away a short while, and packed 
his bag and left Mrs. Ostrander’s—that’s the name of 
the woman who kept the house where he lived. Now 
that was over a month ago, but he hasn’t come back, 
and the clerk at the bank told me they hadn’t heard 
from him, and neither has Mrs, Ostrander. And Bill 
Buell here—though he’s Sam’s half-brother—doesn’t 
know where to locate him, and doesn’t know who the 
sick relative could be.” 

“ Sam and I never saw much of each other since 
we left home fifteen years ago,” Buell explained. 

“ It’s strange, isn’t it?” said Nancy, looking at 
Blythe. “ I don’t suppose you’ve caught sight of him 
this last month in New York? ” 

“ No, I haven’t,” Blythe answered truthfully. 

“ You’d have thought he’d have written the bank or 
Mrs. Ostrander,” mused Buell, gazing out over the 
porch-rail into the depths of a maple. “ His accounts 
at the bank were in perfect order, according to what 
the clerk there told Nancy. But he hasn’t written to 
any one apparently. He just walked out of his board¬ 
ing-house, and hasn’t been heard from since.” 

“ That’s so,” said Nancy, with a nod. “ It does 
seem queer.” 

Buell frowned at the maple for several minutes, evi- 


I 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 


87 


dently speculating on the strange conduct of his half- 
brother, and then turned to the girl. “ Nancy,” said 
he, “ we’ll take you to Charlie Madden’s to lunch,— 
I know that’s your favorite place,—if you’ll stop with 
us on the way at the house where Sam roomed.” 

“ All right,” she assented. “ You wait here for me 
a minute.” 

Shortly she came back, this time wearing a hat 
ornamented with corn-flowers, her nose a little more 
powdered, her lips rather more vivid. Laughing and 
joking,—evidently finding in Buell a satisfactory sub¬ 
stitute for her erstwhile friend Samuel Lunt,—she 
walked with the two men to the centre of town, and 
on Federal Street pointed out a plain brick dwelling 
in one of the lower windows of which appeared the 
sign “ Vacancies.” 

Mrs. Ostrander was in, and was interested in talking 
to the friends of her recent lodger. In answer to 
Buell’s question as to what she knew about the de¬ 
parture of Lunt, she said, “ Why, a telegram came 
for him that afternoon. The boy brought it before 
Mr. Lunt got back from the bank, and I signed for it, 
and left it on the little table out in the hall. I was 
here in my sitting-room—it must have been about four 
o’clock—when Mr. Lunt walked in with the telegram 
in his hand. ‘ Mrs. Ostrander,’ said he, ‘ I’ve just 
had word that a relative of mine is very sick in New 


88 


CROOKED LANES 


York and wants to see me. I’m going to take the next 
train. Would you mind if I used your telephone to 
call up the bank?’ I told him to do so; and he 
’phoned the bank, saying he’d be away for a few days, 
giving the reason, and telling them he’d write to let 
them know when he’d be back. Then he went up to 
his room. I didn’t happen to be around when he came 
down again. That’s more than a month ago, but I 
haven’t had any word from him since.” 

“ What day was it he left? Do you remember? ” 
asked Buell. 

Mrs. Ostrander turned to a small memorandum book 
on a table in her sitting-room. “ I know he’d paid 
me his board that morning,” she said, fingering the 
leaves. “ Yes, here it is. He went on June third.” 

“ Some time after four o’clock on the afternoon 
of the third of June,” said Buell. 

The repetition of the date, and the thoughtful man¬ 
ner in which Buell spoke, caught Blythe’s attention. 
He remembered that date. It had been on the night 
of the third of June that John Caradine had been shot 
in his study. 

“ Have you rented Mr. Lunt’s room? ” asked Buell. 

Mrs. Ostrander shook her head. “ No, sir, I 
haven’t. This isn’t a very good time of year for let¬ 
ting rooms, and then I’ve been expecting that he’d be 
back and want the room again. I always liked Mr. 


THE LOST MR. LUNT 


89 


Lunt. He was an easy man to get along with. He’d 
been here almost two years, and always paid his money 
promptly.” 

“ May we have a look at his room ? ” inquired Buell. 

Mrs. Ostrander obligingly conducted them upstairs. 
The room that had been Samuel Lunt’s was a plain 
apartment, of the usual boarding-house type. 

“ Everything is here just as he left it,” said the land¬ 
lady ; “ except for his small traveling-bag and his 
toilet things.” x 

Mrs. Ostrander and Nancy chatted while the detec¬ 
tive and Blythe made a tour of the room. 

In a closet hung a man’s clothes, neatly arranged, 
the trousers in presses. The bureau contained a good 
supply of clothing. On a table were a box of note- 
paper, an inkstand and a tray with pens and pencils. 
A shelf on the wall near the table held a row of books, 
a dictionary, some novels, and several volumes of 
travel. 

“ That trunk in the corner is empty,” said Mrs. 
Ostrander. “ It was unlocked, and I looked in it.” 

Buell verified this in a casual manner. “ As you 
say,” he remarked to the landlady, “ everything seems 
to be just as Mr. Lunt left it. Do you happen to re¬ 
member what suit he was wearing on the third of 
June ? ” 

Mrs. Ostrander thought for several minutes. “ It 


90 CROOKED LANES 

seems to me it was a dark-blue flannel, with white 
pin stripes. He’d got it new in the spring. Yes, I’m 
pretty sure it was that.” 

Buell went to the closet and returned with a suit 
of clothes. “ That answers to your description,” he 
said. 

“ Yes, that’s the one I meant,” the landlady an¬ 
swered in some surprise. “ That’s the one he wore 
all this spring.” 

“ I’d like to know what suit he wore when he went 
out of here that afternoon,” said Buell. 

But Mrs. Ostrander, though she looked through the 
closet, couldn’t enlighten him on that score. “ Seems 
as if all the suits I remember were here,” she stated. 
“ Perhaps he had a new one I hadn’t seen.” 

“ He must have,” said Buell. “ Well, seeing that 
he left so many things here, it’s certainly odd that he 
hasn’t written to tell you what to do with them. We’ve 
looked at about everything there is to be seen, so we 
won’t keep you any longer, Mrs. Ostrander.” 

The two women started downstairs. At the door 
of the room, however, Buell laid his hand on Blythe’s 
arm. “ One moment,” he said. “ Did you take a good 
look at the books ? ” 

“ Yes,” answered Blythe. “ Novels and some books 
of travel.” 

“ Come, come,” exclaimed Buell with a trace of 


THE EOST MR. LUNT 91 

impatience. “ What’s the matter with your eyes ? 
Now what about those books of travel? ” 

Blythe glanced at the shelf again. “ They’re all 
about South America,” he stated. 

“ Yes. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Sam Lunt read 
about South America, more particularly about Brazil 
you’ll find if you study the titles. And in addition to 
that, he didn’t wear his usual blue flannel suit with 
white pin stripes when he went out of here in the 
afternoon or evening of June third. Do you know 
what I think? I think that very possibly when Sam 
left here he didn’t intend to come back, nor to write to 
his landlady. No, nor to write to the bank where he 
was employed, either. I think that telegram may have 
been a blind.” 

Blythe stared in surprise at the other man. “ You 
mean you think that perhaps he deliberately planned 
to disappear? ” he demanded. 

William Buell chuckled. “ I shouldn’t wonder. 
And why should a man deliberately plan to disap¬ 
pear?” he asked. And he answered his own ques¬ 
tion. “ Usually because he wants to try being some¬ 
body else.” 


VII 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 

“ It’s the deuce of a tangle, isn’t it? ” said Calvert. 
“We ought to strike while the iron’s hot; but we 
mustn’t act until we’ve got all the evidence in our 
hands, and can point out all the guilty persons.” 

The man in white flannels, smoking his pipe, was 
sitting on the side porch of the Peacock Inn, and had 
apparently been enjoying the quiet of the summer 
evening. A motor party had finished a fried chicken 
and waffle supper half an hour earlier and had taken 
to the road again. The Eddys were busy indoors, 
and Joan was writing a letter in the sitting-room. 

Blythe looked up in surprise. He had been occu¬ 
pied with his own thoughts, and Calvert’s remarks, 
following a long silence, fitted amazingly into his re¬ 
flections. If there were crooks still at large in West¬ 
minster, as Buell had intimated to him that morning, 
might not Joan, as the heiress of Caradine, be in dan¬ 
ger from them? He was all for action, but—it was 
the deuce of a tangle! 

Blythe was convinced that Buell had had some ob¬ 
ject in giving him the opportunity to talk with Nancy 


93 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 

Hackett and learn about the disappearance of Samuel 
Lunt. But he hadn’t been able to make out exactly 
what the object was. He had lunched with Nancy 
and Buell at Charlie Madden’s, Westminster’s nearest 
approach to a Broadway cabaret, and had been intro¬ 
duced to several young men and women who belonged 
to Nancy’s set. It had amused him to watch Nancy, 
the acquisitive female. She evidently felt that William 
Buell was her own property, and made use of various 
little tricks to warn other girls away from her posses¬ 
sion. What was even more amusing was the semi- 
comical expression on Buell’s face as he allowed her 
to monopolize his attentions. 

Nancy Hackett was a lively and pretty girl; but 
Blythe thought Buell had other reasons for his interest 
in her. Probably through her he expected to gain in¬ 
formation concerning certain people in the town. 

On separating after lunch Nancy had told Blythe 
that she hoped to see him soon again, and had even 
suggested a party at a dance-hall. He had played up 
to her, and been rewarded by an approving glance 
from her lustrous brown eyes. But he had felt just 
as much at sea as before concerning the significance 
of Nancy and her friend Lunt in the Caradine mys¬ 
tery ; and Buell had vouchsafed him no further infor¬ 
mation. 

One thing Blythe had done, however. He had asked 


94 


CROOKED LANES 


Buell’s permission to tell his friends at the Peacock 
Inn his adventures of the morning, including the fact 
that Buell was a detective and interested in the crime 
at Sherwood. 

That evening, on the porch, Blythe had reviewed 
to himself the facts he had learned about Lunt. Two 
facts might possibly be considered to connect him with 
Caradine. First, there was the date of his disappear¬ 
ance ; and second, the discovery that he had been read¬ 
ing books on Brazil. Yet how could those two facts 
show any real relation between the missing bank clerk 
and the noted explorer ? 

Lunt had left Mrs. Ostrander’s house some time 
after four o’clock, wearing a different suit of clothes 
from that he ordinarily wore. That, at least, was 
apparently how William Buell pictured it, although 
Blythe could not see that the suit of clothes had any 
special significance. Well, it was a long jump to sup¬ 
pose that he had gone to Sherwood on some business 
connected with Caradine. 

But Buell had said that Lunt was his own step¬ 
brother; and if that were so, would he be intimating 
that Lunt was a murderer? Lunt might, of course, 
have shot Caradine in self-defense; but to do that, the 
two men must have quarreled; and what could they 
have quarreled about that would have led to violence? 
A woman? If Lunt had been interested in a woman, 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 95 

wouldn’t Nancy Hackett have known something about 
it? 

So far he had gotten in his reflections when Calvert 
surprised him with his question. 

“ Yes, it is a tangle,” Blythe agreed. “ And it ought 
to be cleared up for Miss Fordyce’s sake.” 

Calvert nodded. “ Have you any idea yet as to 
the identity of the lady of the perfumed handker¬ 
chief?” 

“ Why, no. Do you still think she’s important ? ” 

“ The unknown woman is always important,” said 
Calvert. 

“ But the only evidence—a handkerchief,” Blythe 
objected. 

“ Well, handkerchiefs have played a large part in 
hsitory,” went on Calvert, in his tone half between 
serious and jesting. “ And have you ever noticed 
how much the dramatists rely on them in constructing 
their plots? If the drama reflects life,—and in certain 
instances it does,—then handkerchiefs are by no means 
unimportant. I asked Edward Grant the other day 
what he did with the lady’s handkerchief when he 
found it in the car. He said he put it in his pocket— 
he also says there were no name or initials on it—and 
later handed it to Caradine, telling him where he found 
it. Caradine said thank you, and put it in his own 
pocket, and went on reading a book.” 


96 


CROOKED DANES 


“You didn’t think that Caradine would have told 
his servant the handkerchief’s history, did you? ” 

“ No. And yet many a man would have said, 4 Oh, 
yes, that belongs to a lady I was driving with to-day,’ 
or something like that. Here’s something else. 
Grant had been with Caradine ever since the latter 
came home, a matter of six months, and during that 
time he noticed that his master was acquiring a new 
taste in dress. At first he wore old clothes and dull- 
colored neckties, but he presently discarded these and 
blossomed forth like a lily of the field. His neckties 
especially became very colorful.’’ 

“ He was simply buying new ones to replace those 
that were worn out.” 

“ But colorful neckties, Blythe. When does a man 
who’s been wearing dull ones shift to brighter 
hues? The answer, it seems to me, is obvious. 
When he wants to make a good impression on a 
woman.” 

“ All right,” Blythe agreed with a smile. 

“ In my opinion,” said Calvert, “ Caradine was fall¬ 
ing in love, and with a woman he’d met since he came 
back to Sherwood. Grant says that his master rarely 
went away on trips, so the lady presumably lived 
within motoring distance. Now an affair of that sort, 
the man being a wealthy bachelor, would ordinarily be 
well known to the neighborhood. But in this case it 


THE COUPEE IN THE CAR 


97 


wasn’t. I’ve made discreet inquiries, and I’ve dis¬ 
covered no gossip. There was some reason, therefore, 
for Caradine and the woman to keep their friendship 
dark.” 

“ A married woman,” Blythe suggested. 

“ Precisely, a married woman, and with a jealous 
husband. If we could put our finger on that couple 
we might learn considerable. But if there are any 
jealous husbands in Westminster, they keep their feel¬ 
ings to themselves.” 

At that point in their talk Joan came out from the 
sitting-room and slipped into a chair. 

“ Please don’t let me interrupt what you were say¬ 
ing,” she urged. 

“ I was merely giving Blythe a little lecture on 
jealous husbands,” said Calvert in his easy manner. 

“ From what I hear in town,” said Joan, “ it’s the 
wives who are usually jealous. Mrs. Madison told me 
of several women the other day.” 

“ You’re not to rely on what Mrs. Madison says,” 
Blythe reminded Joan. 

“ Oh, you know her, do you? ” asked Calvert. “ I 
found her a very entertaining woman.” 

Blythe sat up abruptly. “ Where did you ever meet 
her?” 

“ At Newbridge,” was the answer. “ I had quite 
a talk with her at the house of Mrs. Simmons.” 


98 


CROOKED LANES 


“Mrs. Simmons? The wife of the druggist?” 
Blythe demanded. 

“ Yes, the pleasant woman we called on. Haven’t I 
told you about that? It was one of my little adven¬ 
tures. I went over to Newbridge to get some bay rum 
at the drug-store, and in talk with Simmons I learned 
that his wife made delicious jellies. So I bought a 
couple of dozen jars from her to stock the pantry 
here, and Mrs. Eddy liked them so much that I’ve been 
over several times to replenish the shelves. And that’s 
where I had the pleasure of a chat with Mrs. Madi¬ 
son.” 

“ Well,” said Blythe, deciding that this was a good 
opportunity to spring his recently-acquired informa¬ 
tion on Calvert, “ a detective who came to Miss 
Fordyce’s office yesterday told us he didn’t consider 
Mrs. Madison a trustworthy person.” 

“ A detective? ” asked Calvert. 

“ Yes,” said Blythe impressively. “A man named 
Buell, who’s investigating affairs in Westminster. He 
gave me permission to mention his business to you and 
the Eddys, though he doesn’t want it generally 
known.” 

Calvert smiled. “ His secret is perfectly safe with 
me. I’m glad to hear of Mr. Buell and his work; I 
think that Westminster needs investigating. But you 
misunderstood me, my dear fellow. I said that Mrs. 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 


99 


Madison was a very entertaining woman; it doesn’t 
follow in the least that I think she always tells the 
truth.” 

“ In spite of Mr. Buell,” Joan interposed, “ Mrs. 
Madison seemed to me a thoroughly respectable per¬ 
son.” 

At that Blythe felt himself on the defensive. He 
liked Buell, and had been much impressed by him. “ I 
think he knows a good deal,” he said. “ Let me tell 
you what I learned from him this morning.” And 
thereupon he related his meeting with Nancy Hackett 
and the story of the disappearance of Lunt. 

Calvert listened attentively, and when Blythe had 
finished he asked: 

“ Do you know what this Samuel Lunt looked 
like?” 

“ No,” admitted Blythe, “ I don’t. None of them 
described his personal appearance. But I suppose he 
was a quiet, reserved fellow—nothing about him to 
make him especially conspicuous.” 

“ A typical bank-teller, you mean?” asked Calvert. 

“ Yes, exactly,” Blythe answered. 

Calvert gave a comical groan. “ There you go; 
falling back on labels again. Has it occurred to you 
that Samuel Lunt might have been the man who took 
the trolley near Sherwood and rode to Newbridge on 
the night of June third? ” 


100 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Why, no, it hasn't,” said Blythe. 

“ Well, it’s possible,” mused Calvert, stroking his 
cheek. “ It ought to be easy enough to get a descrip¬ 
tion of the personal appearance of Lunt from Mrs. 
Ostrander. The difficulty is in identifying the man 
* who took the trolley.” 

Into the quiet that succeeded Calvert’s words there 
broke the raucous noise of an automobile horn, not far 
away on the highroad. For several minutes the three 
on the porch paid no particular attention to it; but the 
horn went on blowing, as if demanding that every one 
within hearing distance should give heed to it, and to 
it alone. 

“ Devilish noise, isn’t it? ” said Calvert. “ That’s one 
of the delights of modern civilization.” 

“ Do you think somebody’s in trouble ? ” asked 
Joan. “ It sounds pretty near.” 

Still the horn went on blowing, until, with one ac¬ 
cord, Joan and the two men jumped up and crossed 
the lawn to the gate. At the same time Herbert and 
Agnes came out from the front door. 

Up the road, perhaps fifty yards away, stood a large 
touring-car, from which proceeded the steady siren 
note. Toward the inn a man and woman were walk¬ 
ing. As they reached the group at the gate the man 
gave a little apologetic laugh and explained, “ Some¬ 
thing’s gone wrong with the horn; very likely there’s a 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 


101 


short circuit. My chauffeur will fix it. But mean¬ 
while we don’t want to split our ear-drums.” 

The woman also laughed. “ It’s more amusing to 
listen to it here than in the car,” she added. She 
spoke with the trace of a foreign accent. 

“ Won’t you come up on our porch, or into the 
house ? ” Herbert Eddy invited. 

“ Thank you,” said the man. “ This is the Peacock 
Inn, isn’t it? I’ve passed here several times.” 

Eddy swung open the gate, and the two motorists 
entered. The woman was wearing a long linen coat 
and a veil over her small smart hat; her companion, a 
big man, had on a light coat over a golf suit, knicker¬ 
bockers and mustard-colored stockings. 

They all went up on the porch. The noise of the 
motor-horn was not so loud now; it sputtered, ceased, 
sputtered again, and so on. “ I think this is very 
nice,” said the woman in the linen coat, seating her¬ 
self in a chair. “ What a charming place—so quiet! ” 
And she gave a light laugh. 

'‘How about some refreshments?” asked the 
man. 

“ Not for me,” his companion answered, with a 
shake of the head. 

Viewed in the light that came through the open door 
she was an extremely pretty woman, young and fair 
and slender. She took out a cigarette case, offered it 


102 


CROOKED LANES 


to the group, helped herself and allowed Calvert to 
hold a match for her. 

“ Capital place for an inn,” vouchsafed the man. 
“ I hope you have plenty of patronage.” 

. His words were affable enough, but there was about 
him a certain air of arrogance, something of the bear¬ 
ing of a man who knew his own importance. 

“ We can’t complain,” answered Eddy. “ We have 
very attractive guests.” And he indicated, with a 
wave of his hand, Joan, Blythe and Calvert. 

“ It must be jolly to stay here,” said the woman in 
the linen coat. “ Odin, we must come some afternoon 
for tea.” 

“Yes,” agreed the man; though his tone was not 
enthusiastic. 

The young woman turned to Joan, who was sitting 
near her. “ You’re spending the summer? ” she asked, 
as if making polite conversation. 

“ Yes,” said Joan. But Agnes added: 

“ Miss Fordyce is a busy person. She goes to an 
office in town every morning.” 

“ How interesting! ” 

Calvert caught the glance of newly-awakened curi¬ 
osity the speaker cast at Joan. 

“ American women do take an interest in business, 
don’t they?” went on the dulcet-toned woman; “no 
matter what their social class? ” 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 


103 


“And in your country?” said Calvert. “I’ve al¬ 
ways understood that Frenchwomen were famous for 
their talent in trade.” 

The lady laughed. “ So you guessed my nationality, 
did you? How clever you are! And what does Miss 
Fordyce do at her office? ” 

“ I give good advice,” Joan answered lightly. 

“ Which is worth its weight in gold,” Calvert put 
in again. “ Is that business unknown in France? ” 

The young woman tossed her head; evidently she 
liked to have her own way. “ Miss Fordyce is very 
astute, is she? Perhaps I shall call to see her. There 
are so many things in America,—yes, and here in 
Westminster,—I should like to know more about.” 
Under her half-concealing lashes she surveyed Joan 
intently. 

There was tension in the air. It almost seemed as 
if the Frenchwoman was trying to create a situation, 
attempting to force Joan to reveal more about her¬ 
self. 

The big man, who had been fidgetting, now stood 
up. “ The chauffeur has the horn fixed at last,” he 
declared. “ I think, Madeleine, we’d better be going 
on.” 

The lady thanked Mrs. Eddy,—she had very pretty 
manners, and a silken voice. She said she should 
certainly come again, for tea or for an ice. Then, 


104 


CROOKED LANES 


with her hand on the arm of her escort, she tripped 
down the path to the gate. 

“ Come,” said Calvert to Blythe, “ let’s see if the 
horn is really behaving.” 

They followed the pair up the road. The horn 
was silent. The chauffeur started his engine, and the 
car rolled away, a gloved hand waving to the two 
men. 

Calvert took a silver pencil from his pocket and 
noted something on a slip of paper. “ My memory for 
license numbers isn’t perfect,” he explained; “ espe¬ 
cially when they run to six figures.” 

“ What do you want of his number? ” Blythe asked. 

“Just to make sure there aren’t two Odins in this 
part of the country. There is an Odin Welsh; and 
from all indications this should be he. I can find out 
the owner of that car.” 

“ His companion is interesting,” said Blythe. “ Mrs. 
Odin?” 

“ That also can be ascertained,” Calvert replied. 
“ At a venture, I’d say no. There was a something 
in his manner that savored of a less assured relation¬ 
ship.” 

“ I never saw such a fellow as you are,” chuckled 
Blythe, “ for puzzling over all sorts of disconnected in¬ 
cidents. First the man and the girl at the Newbridge 
station, and now this couple in the car.” 


THE COUPLE IN THE CAR 


105 


41 Don’t forget Miss Nancy Hackett and her friend 
Lunt.” 

“Ah, that!” said Blythe. “That’s really interest¬ 
ing! Buell’s theory is that when a man plans delib¬ 
erately to disappear he does it because he wants to try 
being somebody else.” 

“ A plausible theory,” Calvert agreed. “ But, in 
this case, as yet unsupported by facts. Did you notice 
how much interested this French woman was in Miss 
Fordyce? ” 

Blythe nodded. 

“ She knows who Miss Fordyce is. She knows about 
Caradine. And here is a man of a jealous nature who 
goes motoring with her. Is the fair Madeleine the 
lady of the handkerchief?” 

“ She might be,” said Blythe slowly. 

“ Yes, she might be.” 

“But in that case,” Blythe objected, ‘'where does 
Lunt come in ? ” 

“You have to put all these seemingly unrelated 
pieces together,” said Calvert, “ and if you succeed, 
you’ll be surprised to find how closely they were con¬ 
nected. See what you can make of them. That’s 
what I’m doing. And if you succeed, think how 
gratified Miss Fordyce will be.” 


VIII 


MRS. WELSH 

Roger Blythe’s ability as an investigator of the 
puzzling affairs that had taken place in Westminster 
was undoubtedly impaired by the fact that he had 
something else—and something of great importance 
—to think about at the same time. Not John Cara- 
dine, so much as the explorer’s cousin and heir, was 
constantly in his thoughts. What her feelings were 
toward himself he couldn't determine. She treated 
him in the same friendly fashion that she did Herbert 
Eddy and Hamilton Calvert. She was essentially a 
self-reliant, independent young woman, who looked 
upon the world, and its men, with interested, but not 
sentimental, eyes. 

And yet, although Joan Fordyce was not at all the 
type he had most frequently dreamed of falling in 
love with,—a type, be it said, that combined the shy, 
defenseless maiden of early Victorian romance and 
the butterfly beauty of smart modern New York,— 
nevertheless he found himself constantly watching her 
gray eyes and listening to her soft voice. Her boyish 
ease of movement, her ready, responsive smile, the 


MRS. WELSH 


107 


dark hair that swept low across her forehead, these, 
and a hundred other things, fascinated and held him. 
And, though neither Joan nor he knew it, Agnes 
Eddy was always putting Joan before him in her most 
attractive light. 

Blythe was, however, attempting to think of some¬ 
thing else beside Joan, although his endeavor to un¬ 
ravel the mysteries of Sherwood and Westminster had 
for its main incentive the desire to protect her. He 
knew that Calvert was working on this problem, and 
he respected the other man’s powers of reasoning. So 
he set himself to study the facts that had so far come 
to his notice. 

Before he went to bed that night Blythe sat down 
at a table in his room and provided himself with a 
pencil and a large sheet of paper. On the paper he 
wrote out a list of the persons and events that, so far 
as he could at present determine, played some part in 
the business under investigation. 

“John Caradine,” he wrote, “ shot by an unknown 
person, X, on the night of June third. Edward Grant, 
his servant, who was sent away from the house by 
Caradine early in the evening. The unknown woman, 
Y, whose handkerchief had previously been found by 
Grant in Caradine’s automobile, and concerning whose 
identity Caradine had apparently been very secretive. 

“ The man in the cap, A, who boarded the trolley 


108 


CROOKED LANES 


near Sherwood about nine o’clock that night and rode 
to Newbridge. The woman, B, who accosted a man, 
possibly A, at the Newbridge railroad station. Mrs. 
Simmons, B’s sister. Mrs. Cora Madison, friend of 
Mrs. Simmons, a woman whose honesty is open to 
question. 

“ The detective, William Buell, who has some preju¬ 
dice against Mrs. Madison. Nancy Hackett, a friend 
of Buell’s. Samuel Lunt, a clerk in the Commercial 
Bank, former admirer of Nancy and step-brother of 
Buell, who left the house of Mrs, Ostrander on the 
afternoon of June third, and hasn’t been seen since. 

“ A man whose first name is Odin, probably Odin 
Welsh. Madeleine, a French woman, friend of Odin.” 

Blythe underscored some names and drew circles 
around others; he made all sorts of lines connecting 
the various people; but the resulting maze enlightened 
him not at all. “ I can’t make any two of those four 
sections fit together,” he concluded. “ The only thing 
that does catch my attention is the fact that Lunt left 
Westminster on the same day that Caradine was shot. 
But I don’t see anything to show that Lunt shot Cara¬ 
dine.” He studied the paper for some time. “ I sup¬ 
pose,” he said half-aloud, “ that Calvert lets his im¬ 
agination leap lightly over that tangle. Let’s see. 

For instance-Well, say that Madeleine was the 

woman whose handkerchief was in Caradine’s car? ” 



MRS. WELSH 


109 


That idea was interesting. “ But beyond the fact 
that she’s an unusually attractive woman,” thought 
Blythe, “ there’s no more real reason for thinking 
her that woman than there is for thinking that Nancy 
Hackett might be,—and some men might find Nancy 
alluring,—apparently Sam Lunt did.” That brought 
him to a new consideration. “ Could Lunt possibly 
have been jealous of Caradine on Nancy’s account? 
No, that doesn’t seem reasonable. I can’t believe that 
a girl like Nancy would attract a man like Caradine. 
It’s much easier to think that the French woman was 
Caradine’s friend, and Odin Welsh the jealous suitor. 
That’s plausible, at least.” After some further con¬ 
sideration Blythe shook his head. “ But it’s only a 
wild guess.” And tearing the paper into small pieces, 
he went to bed. 

Next morning, soon after breakfast, Joan started 
for town, accompanied this time by Calvert as well as 
Blythe. The pink-cheeked man was very animated, 
and kept his companions laughing at his whimsical 
comments on everything they saw. 

In Westminster they separated, Joan and Blythe 
going to the former’s office, while Calvert strolled 
down Washington Street, the perfect picture of a 
gentleman with nothing more serious on his hands 
than his own amusement. They had made a date to 
lunch together at a quiet restaurant at one o’clock, and 


110 


CROOKED LANES 


when Joan and Blythe arrived they found their friend 
in possession of a corner table. 

Calvert, having consulted Joan’s wishes, ordered 
the luncheon. Then, making sure that he could not 
be overheard, he said: “Well, I’ve picked up a few 
scraps of information this morning. The gentleman 
who did us the honor to sit on our porch for a few 
minutes last evening was Mr. Odin Welsh. I’ve veri¬ 
fied that by a personal description I obtained of him 
and also of his car.” 

Joan smiled. “ Why, I didn’t know you were par¬ 
ticularly interested in him, Mr. Calvert.” 

“ Oh, but I am, Miss Fordyce; more especially since 
1 had the pleasure of meeting him last night. He 
represents the strong man of our civilization; perhaps 
I might say the Samson. He’s the largest stockholder 
in half a dozen mills in this neighborhood, a director 
of the leading bank, president of a small, but highly 
lucrative, branch railway. In fact I think I may say 
that he has a finger in every pie that has any plums in 
it. Do have a piece of this celery, Miss Fordyce; it 
looks young and tender.” 

Joan helped herself. “ In other words, this Mr. 
Welsh is a pillar of society,” she commented. 

“A pillar, yes; but not an immaculate pillar. You 
wouldn’t find many men in Westminster who’d admit 
as much as that to a stranger; but I picked the right 


MRS. WELSH 


111 


man, an old-fashioned, wizened-up fellow in a musty 
one-horse real estate office. He confided to me that 
Odin Welsh has only one aim in business,—to get his 
hands on as much money as he can for himself.” 

“ Well, he’s not altogether unique in that,” observed 
Blythe. 

“ No, unfortunately he’s not,” Calvert assented. 
“ It’s not a new game. This particular gentleman 
owns blocks of tenements and small workingmen’s 
houses, and his agents see that he doesn’t lose a penny 
in rents.” Calvert finished his soup. “ It’s a rather 
wonderful spider that can spin such a web that its fila¬ 
ments take in practically every interest in the com¬ 
munity. Nobody dares protest; his tenants are also 
the employees in his mills, the bank depends on his 
railway, the city officials hold their jobs at the pleasure 
of his machine. I knew something of this, and my real 
estate friend verified the facts for me. And that’s 
the situation that’s caused many of the hardships 
you’re trying to remedy, Miss Fordyce. But I’m 
afraid I’m talking rather too seriously for a luncheon 
party. I really didn’t intend to. Ah, here comes the 
filet of sole.” 

“ Somebody ought to show him up,” said Blythe. 

Calvert smiled, nodding at Joan. “ You see it’s 
Roger, not I, who will stick to the discussion, at the 
risk of spoiling our appetites.” He turned to Blythe, 


112 


CROOKED LANES 


“ It doesn’t follow that our Samson has done any¬ 
thing illegal. And who would show him up ? Or try 
to? Such a person as John Caradine perhaps. Yes, 
I think he might have attempted it. 

“ The question is,” said Calvert after a moment, 
“ did John Caradine attempt it, and did Odin Welsh 
know that he was doing it? ” 

“ It would have been a splendid thing for my cousin 
to do,” said Joan. 

Again there was an intermission. Then, with the 
arrival of salad, Calvert resumed. “ I had some other 
interesting experiences this morning. I went to see 
Mrs. Ostrander. She wasn’t at home; but I found 
one of her boarders on the front porch, a man who 
had known Samuel Lunt fairly well. I got into talk 
with him, saying that I had once been acquainted with 
a man named Lunt, and having heard that there had 
been a boarder at Mrs. Ostrander’s by that name, won¬ 
dered if it was the same fellow. It wasn’t, naturally. 
Mrs. Ostrander’s Lunt was tall and spare, dark-haired, 
had regular features and a very gentlemanly appear¬ 
ance. But what interested me particularly was the 
boarder’s saying that Lunt had kept himself aloof 
from his old friends for a month or so before he left 
town. He seemed to have something on his mind. 
He didn’t go out in the evening, as he used to; and 
he always kept his door locked when he was in. 


MRS. WELSH 


113 


* Sort of secretive, he seemed to me/ said the boarder. 
‘ I don’t know how to explain it, but it looked as if he 
was trying to make himself over, be more dignified 
and standoffish. I used to jolly him a bit, ask him if 
he was training to be president of the bank; but he 
didn’t like it. It seemed as if he’d lost his sense of 
humor.’ ” 

“ Perhaps he wanted to turn over a new leaf,” said 
Joan. 

“ But this man,” Blythe objected, “ so far as we 
know hadn’t done anything one would wish to hide. 
His past record was good.” 

“ Suppose he was tired of being good, and wanted 
to turn over a new leaf?” Calvert suggested with a 
twinkle in his eye. “ Well, from Mrs. Ostrander’s I 
went to the Commercial Bank, and, by the exercise of 
considerable tact, found out something more. They 
have heard nothing from Lunt since he telephoned 
them on June third that he was called out of town; and 
they have three weeks’ salary due him, earned before 
he left. That is an interesting circumstance, isn’t it? 
One would certainly have expected him to write, ask¬ 
ing for his salary, if he couldn’t arrange to come back. 
I also went to the telegraph office, and found the rec¬ 
ord of the wire Lunt received on June third. It read: 
‘ Harriet ill and wants to see you.’ It was signed 

* Joseph,’ and the sender’s address was given as the 


114 


CROOKED LANES 


Murray Hotel. Not much information in that; and 
yet—when you put all these items together—one may 
feel interested—as I understand that Roger’s acquaint¬ 
ance Buell is—in the disappearance of this Samuel 
Lunt” 

“ Yes,” admitted Blythe. “ And yet I can’t see what 
bearing it can have on any of our affairs.” 

‘‘It doesn’t seem to, offhand, does it?” said Cal¬ 
vert. 

“ You’ve got something in your mind,” Blythe re¬ 
torted. “What is it?” 

Calvert gave a shrug. “ Well, I was thinking of 
some strawberry ice-cream,” he confessed with a smile. 
“ Here I’ve been doing all the talking. Hasn’t Miss 
Fordyce something to say? ” 

“Well,” said Joan, “since Mr. Calvert knows so 
much, I’d like to ask him who was Mr. Welsh’s com¬ 
panion in the car.” 

Calvert nodded. “ A perfectly proper question. I 
think she may be Miss Delilah; but beyond that 
I can’t say as yet. Extremely agreeable, wasn’t 
she ? ” 

“ Agnes and I discussed her last night,” said Joan. 
“ We agreed that she was very pretty.” 

“ That’s a point on which we can all concur,” Cal¬ 
vert responded. When they had finished their dessert, 
he said, “ Now do you have to go back to that office? 




MRS. WELSH 


115 


How much better to spend the afternoon outdoors. 
I know a road to the inn where we’re not likely to meet 
many motors.” 

“ I have to go back for a few minutes,” said Joan. 
“ There were a couple of letters I must get off to-day. 
After that I’m free.” 

The three walked to the office, where Joan sat down 
to finish some writing. She had not quite done this 
when there was a knock at the door. Blythe admitted 
a woman. 

“ You are Miss Fordyce? ” asked the caller, looking 
at Joan. “ I am Mrs. Welsh. I wanted to see you on 
a little matter of business.” 

Mrs. Welsh would have been noticeable anywhere, 
if only for the beauty of her copper-red hair, made 
all the more glorious by her deep blue eyes. It was 
her name, however, that instantly caught the attention 
of the three in the office. Joan rose. “Yes, I am 
Miss Fordyce, Mrs. Welsh,” she said. “This is Mr. 
Blythe, Mr. Calvert.” 

The caller acknowledged their bows with a smile. 

Blythe reached for his hat and stick. “ While you 
ladies talk business-” 

“ No, please don’t go,” Mrs. Welsh interrupted. 
“ The matter I came about is not at all private. I 
wanted to make a small contribution to the work Miss 
Fordyce is doing.” 



116 


CROOKED LANES 


Calvert drew a chair to the desk and Mrs. Welsh sat 
down. From the small gold-mesh bag that hung at 
her wrist she took out a folded check. “ This is for 
your own personal work,” she explained; “ not for 
that of the society across the hall. I’ve made out the 
check to your order.” 

Joan looked a bit puzzled. “ That’s very kind of 
you,” she said. “ I haven’t been expecting any con¬ 
tributions ; but of course, when one’s dealing with hard 
luck cases one can find use for any gifts.” 

“ I imagine there are plenty of hard luck cases in 
Westminster,” Mrs. Welsh replied. “ I should like 
very much to help some of them. Give the money 
where you think it’s most needed, Miss Fordyce, to 
make people happier.” 

“ How did you happen to hear of my work? ” asked 
Joan. 

“ From Mr. Joshua Mason. He’s very much inter¬ 
ested in what you’re doing.” 

“ I suppose, as a lawyer, he knows conditions in 
Westminster pretty well,” volunteered Calvert. “ A 
lawyer has many eyes.” 

Mrs. Welsh glanced at the speaker. “ Mr. Mason 
does know a good deal. And though he’s generally 
considered very conservative, he’s really very kind- 
hearted and sympathetic. He thinks very highly of 
Miss Fordyce; he’s told me so several times.” 


MRS. WELSH 


117 


“ Good for him! ” exclaimed Calvert, so heartily 
that it brought a flush to Joan’s cheeks. 

“You must let me tell you of some of the people I 
help with your money,” Joan put in quickly to change 
the subject. 

“ I wish you would! ” said Mrs. Welsh. “ Come to 
see me any time. I should love it! ” 

A few minutes later she left. Joan put the check 
in a drawer of the desk and turned, to find Blythe look¬ 
ing out the window and Calvert slowly twirling his 
straw hat round and round on his finger. Calvert 
glanced up, and Joan’s eyes met his. 

“ The wife of the man we met last evening,” 
Calvert remarked in his soft voice. “ Mrs. Odin 
Welsh.” 

“ And a perfectly charming woman,” said Joan. 

“ She deserves to be much happier than she is,” 
said Calvert. 

Joan nodded. “ You noticed that she seemed—well, 
rather pathetic,—didn’t you ? ” 

“ That man Welsh is a blackguard! ” exclaimed 
Blythe, swinging around from the window. “ Play¬ 
ing fast and loose with a woman like that! ” 

Calvert put in soothingly: “ How do you know he 
is? Simply because he was motoring with another 
lady last night? ” 

“ A French woman, young and pretty,” Blythe re- 


118 


CROOKED LANES 


torted derisively. “And any one could see that he 
was infatuated with her.” 

“ I’m inclined to agree with Roger,” said Joan ju¬ 
dicially. 

“ Very well. Have it your own way,” said Calvert. 
“ The thing that interests me is that she brought her 
check to you instead of to the society across the 
hall.” 

Soon after Joan locked her door, and the three went 
for their walk. 

After dinner that evening Calvert strolled from the 
inn up the road to the gate-posts at Sherwood. Turn¬ 
ing in there, he followed the drive to the mansion on 
the hill. On a bench outside the kitchen door he found 
Edward Grant, smoking his pipe. With a pleasant 
salutation Calvert lighted his own pipe and sat down 
on the bench. 

“ Seen that friend of yours at the Welshs’ lately? ” 
he asked. 

“ Yes, sir,” said Grant. “ Joseph Carey and I see 
considerable of each other. His wife and daughter 
live in a small house this side of Broadlawn,—that’s 
the name of Mr. Welsh’s place,—and I meet him there 
of an evening when he’s off duty.” 

“ Talkative, is he? ” 

“ Oh, yes, he’s talkative, and so is his wife. She 
hasn’t much good to say about Mr. Welsh, that is, 


MRS. WELSH 


119 


about the way he treats his wife. Mrs. Carey wonders 
she don’t leave him.” 

“ Pride, perhaps.” 

“ I don’t know about that, Mr. Calvert. But Carey 
tells me his master isn’t very much at home, and lets 
his secretary—a man by the name of Brewster—look 
after everything for him.” 

Calvert smoked a few minutes before he asked: 

“ Does Carey say that his master talked much about 
Mr. Caradine? ” 

“ Yes, he says he used to talk about him; he didn’t 
seem to like him for some reason.” 

“ But you, Grant, never heard Mr. Caradine talk 
about the Welshs? ” 

“ No, sir, I can’t recollect that I ever did.” 

“ There were two reasons,” said Calvert slowly, 
“ why Odin Welsh hated John Caradine. The first 
one was because Caradine was interfering with some 
of his business schemes in Westminster, and the second 
was because Caradine was a friend of his wife.” 

“ How do you make that out, sir? ” 

” I make it out of a number of little things. One is 
that Mrs. Welsh gave Miss Fordyce some money to¬ 
day to carry on work she knew John Caradine would 
approve of. Mrs. Welsh is a wonderfully appealing 
woman, Grant. But I can’t believe that it came to an 
actual fight between Caradine and Welsh. Welsh 


CROOKED LANES 


120 

wouldn’t be as crude as that. But he did want the 
other man out of his way—and he succeeded. Not 
by the shot of a chance burglar, oh, no! And that, as 
I see it, is where Samuel Lunt may have come in.” 

“ Lunt? ” exclaimed Grant. “ That’s queer. Joseph 
Carey asked me the other night if I knew anything 
about a man of that name.” 

“ Yes? ” said Calvert. 

“ Carey said that he heard Mr. Welsh one morning 
—Carey wasn’t in the room—but he overheard Mr. 
Welsh say, 'We haven’t heard the last of that man 
Lunt yet. He’ll be turning up here some day.’ Carey 
wondered who he was.” 

“ Who was Welsh talking to? ” asked Calvert. 

“ To his wife, Carey says.” 

Calvert shook his head. “ Poor woman! Between 
the devil and the deep sea! ” He stood up, his usually 
serene face tense and angry. “ I don’t like to make a 
woman suffer; but I’m going to clean this up! Welsh 
is a scoundrel; and she’ll be well rid of him, even if 
she has to see him standing in the prisoner’s dock. 
Poor woman! She’s proud, and she hasn’t any one to 
turn to. Welsh made use of Lunt;—very well, now 
we’ll see if we can’t make Welsh pay for services 
received! ” 


IX 


CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 

Calvert was up early the next morning, and be¬ 
fore breakfast he wrote a letter to that Miss Ellen 
Massey whom he wanted to assist him by observing 
events at Northfield. It was a short note; but the pen¬ 
ning of it, and then the reading it over, appeared to 
give him a great deal of satisfaction. That done, he 
took a short stroll, and turned off from the highroad 
into a meadow, where, in a corner, a couple of boards 
fastened between two trees provided a rustic seat. 

There he sat, enjoying the cool, fragrant breeze and 
the wide-swept view. There was nothing like early 
morning to clear the cobwebs from the mind, and he 
felt that his mind needed such a clearing. His investi¬ 
gations had led him to a certain point, but beyond that 
the trails were confused. He was not so certain this 
morning as he had been the night before that Odin 
Welsh had actually made use of Lunt, or some one 

J 7 

else, to rid himself of Caradine; he was inclined to 
wonder, on the contrary, whether it was not Welsh 
who had been made use of, without his knowledge. 

“ There’s something queer about that affair at Sher- 


122 


CROOKED LANES 


wood,” he reflected. “ I can see why they picked Cara- 
dine out; but they certainly didn’t shoot him because 
Welsh hated him and feared his opposition in business. 
I shouldn’t have expected them to shoot him; I should 
have thought they would have handled him in some 
other way. Of course they were after his money; and 
yet, taking the course they did, they haven’t touched 
a penny of it. 

“ Now they’re working on other lines, and the devil 
of it is that I can’t prove a thing against them. Lunt 
has disappeared. He intended to disappear. He had a 
confederate send him that telegram. But how did he 
expect to profit by that ? ” 

Calvert turned the many points of the problem over 
and over in his mind, and then made a sweeping ges¬ 
ture of his hand as if he were addressing the meadows. 
“ Begin afresh,” he said. “ Start at the other end. 
Caradine was shot. Lunt left Westminster the same 
day. I must find out more about Welsh and his house¬ 
hold. Ellen will take up the trail over at Northfield. 
And I must have a talk with this fellow Buell, and 
with Nancy Hackett.” 

He stood up. “ Nancy Hackett.” And suddenly he 
smiled. “ An excellent way to approach that lady 
would be through Blythe. What a mistake it is to 
force a situation until you’ve studied all the cards in 
your hand,” 


CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 123 


Walking back to the inn his thoughts turned to the 
Welslis. “ I’d like to know,” he considered, “ when 
it was that this French woman first appeared on the 
scene? Was it before Caradine came to Sherwood? 
In that case, Mrs. Welsh, seeing her husband’s interest 
in the French woman, might have been glad of the 
friendship of the returned explorer. Also Madeleine 
would very likely have fanned Welsh’s resentment 
against Caradine. A clever lady, no doubt of it. I 
shouldn’t wonder if she suggested to Welsh the other 
night that they stop at the inn, her motive being to 
size up Caradine’s cousin. Fortunately for Miss 
Fordyce, she’s pretty well protected against chance 
friends.” 

Breakfast was ready when he returned, and over 
the coffee and eggs Calvert made a suggestion to Joan. 
“Will you rent me the little car at Sherwood? I’ve 
driven a number of makes, and I think I could man¬ 
age that without doing much damage. I’ll drive you to 
town whenever you want; and maybe Mr. Eddy woidd 
let me keep it in his garage with his little flivver.” 

“ I’ll loan it to you,” said Joani 

“ Certainly you can keep it in our garage,” agreed 
Eddy. “ A car like that will add tone to the inn.” 

“ Well, I’ll borrow it then,” said Calvert, “ with the 
understanding that I’m to be errand-boy for Miss 
Fordyce whenever she wishes.” 


124 


CROOKED LANES 


So after breakfast Calvert and Joan and Blythe went 
over to Sherwood. They found Edward Grant, who 
said he didn’t drive the car himself, but knew how to 
keep it in running order. There was plenty of gasoline 
in the tank, air enough in the tires to take them into 
Westminster, and after a few minutes’ study of the 
mechanism Calvert drove out of the converted stable 
and made several tours of the circular driveway. 

“ I’ve got the hang of it all right,” he announced. 
“ Who wants to go into town this morning with me 
instead of by trolley ? ” 

Joan and Blythe wanted to; and climbed into the 
seat beside the driver. Going carefully down the wind¬ 
ing road to the gate-posts, Calvert turned into the pike 
and sped at a good clip past the inn and on into West¬ 
minster. 

There he told Blythe that he would like to have a 
talk with William Buell; so, leaving Joan at her office, 
Blythe directed him to 183 Fairview Street. The girl 
who answered the bell told them that Mr. Buell was 
not in the house. “ Well,” said Calvert, as they again 
got into the car, “ since we can’t see Buell, how about 
calling on your entertaining friend Miss Haekett?” 

“ The brown-eyed beauty? ” said Blythe. “ I’ll take 
the responsibility of introducing you, as you’re a 
bachelor.” 

Nancy Haekett was at home; had, in fact, hardly 


CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 125 


more than finished her breakfast when, on answering 
the door-bell, she discovered two gentlemen seeking the 
pleasure of a morning call. She acknowledged the in¬ 
troduction of Calvert with a gracious smile, which 
was, perhaps, made even more amiable than usual in 
consequence of her glimpsing the car outside. 

She invited them to her balcony, and there regaled 
them with a lively account of a dance she had been to 
the night before. Blythe was amused to see how much 
interested Calvert was in everything the girl related. 
The man in white flannels said that he wished he had 
been there, that he loved dancing—and implied that he 
would have particularly loved dancing with such a 
partner as Nancy. 

Naturally Nancy was pleased, and began to look on 
the smiling-eyed gentleman with special favor. 

“ I suppose Mr. Blythe’s friend was there—William 
Buell, I mean ? ” said Calvert. 

“ No, he wasn’t. He’s a funny fellow, always dis¬ 
appearing when there’s a party on.” 

“ Well, he doesn’t disappear as definitely as Samuel 
Lunt,” said Calvert, in an amused tone. 

Nancy flashed a glance at him, then another at 
Blythe. “ You haven’t been talking about Sam Lunt 
all over the place, I hope? ” 

Calvert jumped up and playfully interposed himself 
between Nancy and Blythe. “ Now you mustn’t blame 


126 


CROOKED LANES 


him, Miss Hackett,” he said. “ It was all my fault to 
mention that. I won’t speak of it again.” 

His mischievous eyes met those of the girl, and she 
laughed. “ Oh, I don’t mind. I can see you’re what 
they call a privileged character. You like your own 
little jokes. No, Bill Buell hasn’t disappeared like 
Sam Lunt; not up to now, anyway.” 

“ That’s a queer business,” remarked Calvert. He 
walked to the rail of the balcony and looked over 
it at his car in the road. “ I say, Miss Hackett, 
you don’t happen to have a picture of Sam Lunt, do 
you ? ” 

“ Er—why, yes, I think I have,” came the slightly 
hesitating answer. 

“ Mind if I see it?” 

“ Why, no.” The girl, a little puzzled, but more 
amused, left the balcony. 

“ Delightful person,” said Calvert. “ And jolly 
good-looking.” 

In a few minutes Nancy came back, with a photo¬ 
graph in her hand. “ There you are,” she said, pre¬ 
senting it to Calvert. “ It isn’t a very good picture. 
But most men don’t take naturally to being photo¬ 
graphed the way women do.” 

Calvert took the picture and studied it attentively. 
Then he handed the photograph to Blythe, who looked 
at it for a moment. 


CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 127 


“ He reminds me of some one,” said Blythe, frown¬ 
ing as if to capture some evasive resemblance. 

“ Well,” said Calvert, “ that’s an unusually inter¬ 
esting face. Did Mr. Lunt give that picture to you? ” 

“ No, he didn’t,” said Nancy, retaking the picture. 
“ He didn’t much want me to have it. But I took a 
snapshot of him one day and had it enlarged.” 

“ An extremely interesting man,” nodded Calvert. 
“ I can see that, Miss Hackett. It’s a pity he disap¬ 
peared. But I dare say we’ll hear of him again.” 

“ I don’t know about that,” said Nancy. “ Bill 
Buell—and he’s a pretty clever fellow—doesn’t seem 
to think so.” 

Calvert shrugged his shoulders. “ It would be a 
shame if we didn’t. How about a ride? ” 

Nancy was agreeable to the suggestion, and they 
drove for an hour by the river road through the valley, 
returned Nancy to her house, then went back and 
lunched with Joan. When they had finished Calvert 
said, “ Miss Fordyce, how would you like to call on 
Mrs. Welsh ? ” 

“ I think that’s a fine idea,” said Joan. “ She’s evi¬ 
dently made an impression on you.” 

Inquiry of one of the clerks in the social service 
office gave Calvert the information as to how to reach 
the house of Mrs. Welsh, and the little car was soon 
bowling over a picturesque road to the northeast of 


128 


CROOKED LANES 


town. Broadlawn was a house not to be mistaken; it 
belonged to a later and more attractive architectural 
era than Sherwood. Built of native yellow-brown 
stone, with wide porches commanding views of the 
picturesque rolling country, it stood in the centre of 
an expanse of lawn diversified by clusters of flowering 
shrubs and several magnificent shade trees. 

“ Behold the castle of one of our American feudal 
barons,” said Calvert, turning in at the main gate. 
“ I fancy that most of the people in Westminster have 
had a share in paying for this splendor.” 

A butler—Joseph Carey—took their cards and 
showed them into a large drawing-room. Shortly he 
returned and announced that Mrs. Welsh was at home; 
and in a few minutes the lady herself appeared. She 
seemed genuinely glad to see them, and proposed that 
they sit on the porch overlooking the rose-garden. 

Mrs. Welsh asked questions and Joan talked about 
her work. Calvert studied his hostess, wondering 
what she knew about the relations of her husband and 
John Caradine during recent months. He could read 
much in a countenance, and there were lines in Lilian 
Welsh’s face that told him things he wanted to know. 

Tea was brought to the porch by the butler, and 
Mrs. Welsh was pouring it when a man came around 
the house and walked along the path between the 
flowers. 


CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 129 


“Won’t you join us, Mr. Brewster?” invited the 
hostess. 

The man assented with a bow, picked a rosebud, 
carefully fastened it in the lapel of his immaculate 
gray flannel coat, and strolled up to the group. 

Mrs. Welsh introduced her guests, and Brewster sat 
down. He was a youngish fellow with fine eyes and 
a high-bridged nose that gave an aristocratic note to 
his thin, olive-skinned face. He was fastidiously 
dressed, his white flannel trousers, white silk socks and 
white buckskin shoes were absolutely speckless. When 
he spoke it was with a slight drawl, that somehow went 
with his fastidious appearance. 

“You’re all staying at the Peacock Inn?” he in¬ 
quired. “ It looks like a delightful place from the 
highroad.” 

“What fun you must have!” Mrs. Welsh ex¬ 
claimed. “ I wish I lived at an inn, with such nice 
people.” 

“ It is jolly,” said Joan. “ You must come and 
have dinner with us some day.” 

Mrs. Welsh smiled. “ I would like to. Really— 
Mr. Brewster will laugh at this, I know; but it’s so;— 
really I sometimes feel that there are very few people 
in Westminster I’d go out of my way to see.” 

Brewster did laugh. “You expect too much of 
your neighbors. I think they’re a rather attractive 


130 CROOKED DANES 

lot on the whole. They may not be particularly bril¬ 
liant -” 

“ If Mrs. Welsh will dine with us,” put in Calvert, 
“ we’ll promise to sharpen our wits before she comes.” 

“ Mr. Calvert will give her his views on the many 
faults of our civilization,” said Blythe. “ That’s one 
of his most eloquent topics.” 

There was laughter at that, and soon after the 
guests took their leave. 

On the way home Joan asked, “ Who is Mr. Brew¬ 
ster?” 

“ Mr. Welsh’s secretary,” answered Calvert. “ I 
fancy it’s a responsible position.” 

When they reached the inn Joan went upstairs. 
The maid informed Blythe that there was some one 
waiting to see him in the sitting-room. Glancing in 
at the door, Blythe saw that it was William Buell. 
“ Come along, Calvert,” he said, “ I want you to meet 
him.” 

Blythe introduced the two men, who shook hands 
cordially. 

“May I have a few words?” asked Buell. “Not 
quite so much in public, though-” And he indi¬ 

cated the open window, through which could be seen 
guests on the porch. 

“ I know a good place,” said Calvert. “ An old 
bench between two apple trees a hundred yards down 




CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 131 


the road. We might go there,—that is, if you’ll in¬ 
clude me in your talk.” 

“ I want you,” said Buell. “ Mr. Blythe has told 
me about you.” 

“ Good,” smiled Calvert. “ What I know about you 
makes me want to know more.” 

They went down the road and found the bench. 
“ Calvert’s a great fellow for secrecy,” Blythe re¬ 
marked. “ I’ll wager he’s got something up his sleeve 
about Samuel Lunt.” 

Calvert held up a protesting hand. 

“ You know about Lunt, do you? ” asked Buell. 

“ Something,” said Calvert, leaning back on the 
bench and clasping his knee in his knotted hands. 

“ Good enough,” nodded Buell. “ I suppose you 
also know that I am a private investigator.” 

“ What is popularly called a detective,” said Calvert. 
“ Yes, I know that. But I have my doubts as to 
whether you are a brother—step, or any other kind— 
to this Lunt.” 

Buell eyed the man in flannels; then laughed. 
“ Your doubts are entirely justified,” he said. He 
cast a glance at Blythe. “ That relationship was made 
necessary by certain circumstances,” he added. 

“ Meaning Miss Nancy Hackett,” explained Calvert. 
“ I judged that after I met her this morning.” 

Again Buell eyed the other man as if he didn’t 


132 


CROOKED LANES 


altogether understand him. “ Well, the fact is,” 
Buell continued, “ that my interest in him is connected 
with some one who is much more important in my 
eyes than he is.” 

“ With Odin Welsh,” supplied Calvert. 

“ I say, Calvert,” broke in Blythe, “ you’re a regular 
mind-reader! ” 

“ Yes, with Odin Welsh,” said Buell, nodding ap¬ 
provingly. “ I don’t know how you worked that out, 
but your answer is correct. I take it that you know 
a good deal about him.” 

“Something,” rejoined Calvert placidly. “Your 
object is to bring our Croesus toppling to the ground. 
Well, sir, he’s beginning to topple.” 

“ He is,” said Buell, with a ring in his voice. “ I’ve 
employed a keen young lawyer here named Palfrey, 
and he’s already found some holes in Welsh’s business 
armor. And I’ve interested a man with money, Dal¬ 
lam, who’s going to take a hand in the game. I’ve 
seen certain financiers in Philadelphia and New York, 
who know a good deal about Welsh and his West¬ 
minster companies. That’s what I’ve been doing lately. 
And from what I’ve learned Welsh is already slip- 
ping.” 

“ The French woman,” said Calvert. “ I think that 
lovely woman is very clever at shearing the locks of 
our modern Samsons.” 


CALVERT SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 133 


“ By Jove, you do know a lot!” said Buell with 
admiration. “ You’re acquainted with Madeleine 
Legros? ” 

“ Hardly acquainted,” answered Calvert. “ But I 
have a sixth sense that tells me a good deal about her.” 

“Yes, there’s the French woman,” Buell resumed. 
“ Welsh is thinking more about her than about any¬ 
thing else. And somebody else is managing his af¬ 
fairs.” 

“ That would be Mr. Brewster,” said Calvert. “We 
met him this afternoon; and again my sixth sense 
felt a thrill.” 

“ Brewster it is,” chuckled Buell. “ Miss Legros to 
allure him, Brewster to handle his business,—Welsh 
has given the fellow all kinds of powers of attorney,— 
and Palfrey and Dallam to take advantage of all slips, 
and Odin Welsh will come a cropper.” 

“ Precisely,” agreed Calvert quietly, his eyes intent 
on Buell. “ And when the giant lies on the ground, 
at his enemies’ mercy, what will become of his wife? ” 

A brief silence ensued, broken by Calvert’s rumina¬ 
tive tones. “ The tragic figure in this not unusual 
drama is the innocent wife. She doesn’t want so much 
money in the first place; but when she’s had it, it’s 
hard to strip her bare. I don’t suppose the people 
you’re acting for have considered her in this matter, 
Mr. Buell.” 


134 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Well, how much has Welsh ever considered her? ” 
was the dogged answer. “ That French woman, re¬ 
member.” 

“ Yes, I know that. And yet some wives are for¬ 
giving -” Calvert straightened his shoulders. 

“ Well, who knows what is best for a woman placed 
as Mrs. Welsh is? I’m sure I don’t. It’s to be war 
then ? ” 

“ A just war,” said Buell. 

Calvert nodded. “ All right. There’s no room for 
sentiment in this business, is there? ” 

In his room Calvert took a newspaper photograph 
from his table drawer and studied it for some time. 
“ Yes, there was a remarkable resemblance between 
those two men,” he mused. “ The question is, did 
that resemblance play a part in this affair? And if 
it did, what part did it play ? ” 



X 


THE GIRL AT NORTHFIELD 

A man in white flannels was sitting on the porch of 
a cottage in Northfield, a town adjacent to Newbridge, 
talking with a pretty young woman. In the road stood 
a small car, in which the pink-faced gentleman had 
driven over from Westminster. 

“ As I constantly remind my good friend Roger 
Blythe at the Peacock Inn,” the man was saying, “ you 
women have a way of winding us around your little 
fingers that would appear extraordinary to any one 
who had a perfectly logical mind,—a character, by the 
way, that I have never yet had the satisfaction of 
meeting. As regularly my friend Blythe pays no at¬ 
tention whatever to what I say. However, I don’t 
blame him for that. At present all his attention is 
devoted to one object, the admirable and delightful 
young woman who has inherited the Caradine estate.” 

The pretty girl—Ellen Massey, Calvert’s assistant 
in Northfield—smiled at her companion. 

“ So Miss Fordyce is winding Mr. Blythe around 
her finger, is she? ” 

“ She is. There’s nothing wrong about that. She 
didn’t set out wilfully to do it.” 


136 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Sometimes you talk, Hamilton,” said the young 
woman, a reproving look in her dark eyes, “as if the 
natural desire of our sex to be nice to your sex was 
something reprehensible.” 

“Reprehensible?” echoed Calvert. “It doesn’t 
seem so to me, though it might perhaps, Ellen, to the 
perfectly logical mind. But, since you raise the point, 
see what the propinquity of Miss Fordyce has done to 
my friend Blythe. He is an intelligent man, and yet 
he’s trying to persuade himself that Samuel Lunt, a 
bank-clerk of unblemished reputation, suddenly took it 
into his head to go to Caradine’s house and shoot him. 
He doesn’t know of any motive for the act. He’s 
really more interested in what Miss Fordyce is think¬ 
ing about him than in learning what Lunt was thinking 
about Caradine.” 

“Haven’t you any use for romance?” asked the 
pretty girl. 

“ Oh, I’m not blaming him,” answered Calvert. 
“ The good opinion of Miss Fordyce is more important 
to him than the solving of all the crimes in the world. 
Of course I have a use for romance! It plays a very 
large part in my business. Take this affair of Made¬ 
leine Legros and Odin Welsh, for example.” 

“Oh, that!” The exclamation had an indignant 
ring. “ That’s not the sort of thing I meant.” 

“ Nevertheless, Miss Ellen Massey,” said Calvert 


THE GIRL AT NORTHFIELD 


137 


reprovingly, “ it is romantic in the larger sense. 
You’ve contrived to put yourself on a friendly footing 
with Madeleine? ” 

Ellen Massey nodded. “ Yes, we’re on excellent 
terms. Madeleine seems to like me very well, and 
I’ve been to her house several times. Her aunt, 
Madame Gavroche, explains to me all her favorite re¬ 
ceipts for soups. She doesn’t know how I hate cook- 
ing.” 

“ It is, as I supposed, quite an exemplary house¬ 
hold,” commented Calvert. “ Sufficient money to keep 
it going in a thrifty way; but with just a little question 
as to its social position here in Northfield. And that 
is one of the reasons why it likes to associate with such 
a model young woman as Miss Massey.” 

“ ‘A little question ’ is right,” nodded Ellen. “ Such 
‘a man as Welsh, constantly appearing in his big car 
and carrying Madeleine off at all hours of the day and 
night, would make any modest household interesting 
to its neighbors.” 

“ Not to mention the new jewels that Madeleine is 
doubtless often seen sporting,” Calvert added drily. 

“ No, she doesn’t often wear jewels. She has too 
much sense for that. And really, Hamilton, she 
doesn’t need them. She is the loveliest thing! That 
pale yellow hair of hers would make any woman’s 
fortune.” 


138 


CROOKED LANES 


“ It’s had a good deal to do with making hers,” said 
Calvert “And Mrs. Welsh has wonderful copper-red 
hair. That man is a positive gourmet in women’s 
tresses. Now if I were choosing I think I should pick 
a rich chestnut brown, with just a hint of autumn 
leaves in certain lights.” 

Ellen shook her head at him. “ You’re unusually 
poetic this afternoon. It must be due to your seeing 
so much of your friend Mr. Blythe. Did you come 
over to Northfield to talk to me about my chestnut 
locks?” 

“ No, unfortunately I didn’t,” sighed Calvert. “ I 
came to talk about Madeleine’s locks, the locks that 
have entangled Welsh. By the way, they’re her own, 

I hope?” 

“ Entirely,” the girl laughed. “ There’s no deceit 
there.” 

“ Then that’s the one exception to most things in this 
neighborhood. How long have Madame Gavroche 
and her neice been in Northfield? ” 

“They came last October; from New York. They 

0 

say they were tired of the city, and wanted to try a 
winter in the country; and they like it here so much 
that they don’t know how long they’ll stay. Madeleine 
met Mr. Welsh shortly before Christmas.” 

“And Samuel Lunt came to Westminster two years 
ago this spring,” Calvert reflected aloud. “And John 


THE GIRL AT NORTHFIELD 


139 


Caradine arrived last January. And that other fel¬ 
low -” Calvert stopped. “Aren’t there any more 

interesting people—fairly recent arrivals—in North- 
field, Ellen?” 

“ Yes, there’s a young man who’s staying at the 
hotel. The wife of the hotel-keeper, who’s quite a 
friend of mine, told me about him, and the other day, 
when I was over there, she introduced me to him; she 
said she thought it would be pleasant for him to know 
some nice people. His name is Frank Prestwick, and 
he’s lately come from England. He has an uncle who 
lives in a big house near here, an uncle he hasn’t met 
for years; but the uncle, Charles Prestwick, refuses 
absolutely to see him.” 

“ You’re a clever girl, Ellen,” said Calvert. “ Prest¬ 
wick is a name not entirely unknown to me. Have you 
seen the uncle? ” 

“ No. But Pve seen the woman who keeps house 
for him. She’s a rather noticeable person; she looks 
something like a gipsy, swarthy, but not unattractive. 
She might be horrid, or she might be very pleasant, 
according to her mood.” 

“ So we have the uncle,” mused Calvert; “ rich and 
eccentric; the nephew desirous of cultivating his 
wealthy relative’s acquaintance; well, there’s nothing 
remarkable in that. And, by the by, it’ll interest you 
to know that Joan Fordyce, although she has all the 



140 


CROOKED LANES 


Caradine money, doesn’t seem to be thinking how 
she’ll spend it on herself.” 

“ Hamilton,” said Ellen, “ are you sure that Miss 
Fordyce isn’t beginning to wind you-” 

Calvert held up his hand. “ No, no, nothing of the 
kind! Haven’t I told you my preference in the color 
of hair? Miss Fordyce’s is several shades too dark 
for my ideal. Hello, here’s a man stopping at your 
gate. Something tells me he wants to speak to you.” 

Ellen turned, and, recognizing the man, called out 
“ Good-afternoon.” As he smiled and started up to¬ 
ward them, she added in an undertone, “ The very 
person I was speaking of, Frank Prestwick.” 

Prestwick was large and blond, with reddish hair 
and a light, drooping mustache that gave an ingenuous 
appearance to his healthy-hued face. Hat in hand, the 
sunlight bringing out the warmth in his hair and skin, 
he looked almost like a college boy as he stopped in 
front of the dapper Calvert and the pretty girl in the 
light green gown. 

“How do you do, Mr. Prestwick?” Ellen greeted 
him. “ This is Mr. Calvert.” 

Prestwick shook hands and grinned, showing a line 
of fine white teeth under the drooping mustache. 
“ Hope Pm not intruding,” he began. 

“ On the contrary,” said Calvert genially, “ you 
come most opportunely. I asked Miss Massey a few 



141 


THE GIRL AT NORTHFIELD 

minutes ago whether any interesting people had re¬ 
cently come to Northheld; and she was telling me 
about you.” 

A gratified smile w r as the response, and a glance of 
thanks at the girl. “Well, now, 1 say-” stam¬ 

mered Prestwick. 

“ Interesting people are my hobby,” went on Cal¬ 
vert, in his light, pleasant way. “ I’m staying over at 
the Peacock Imr at Westminster, and I told Miss 
Massey about the other guests there, and to get even 
with me, I suppose, she began talking of you.” 

Prestwick sat on the rail of the porch, his broad 
shoulders against a post. “ Well, I mayn’t be particu¬ 
larly interesting,” he said, “ but the situation I’m in 
certainly is. My Uncle Charles seems to think I’m 
some sort of a bounder. Ide won’t have anything to 
do with me.” 

“ Uncles sometimes take odd fancies,” observed Cal¬ 
vert. “ But I should think that as soon as he laid eyes 
on you-” 

“ That’s just the trouble,” interrupted Prestwick. 
“ He won’t. He won’t even see me. I’m the son of 
his younger brother Edgar, and I’ve been living with 
my people in England for ten years, and now when I 
come back to the States and hunt him up he hasn’t 
even the decency to ask me to dinner.” 

“ I don’t wonder you’re provoked,” put in Ellen. 




142 


CROOKED LANES 


Prestwick gazed at her while he thoughtfully 
smoothed his silky mustache. “ That woman, Miss 
Granby, takes my messages to him; but that’s as far as 
it gets.” 

“ Oh, yes, Miss Granby, the housekeeper,” said Cal¬ 
vert, nodding, as if he remembered the name. 

“ Well, she is his housekeeper,” admitted Prestwick, 
“ but she seems to be more than that. Any one who 
didn’t know might easily take her for a relative 
of Uncle Charles. She has the air, as one might 
say.” 

“How long has Miss Granby been there?” asked 
Calvert. 

Prestwick shook his head. Ellen, however, an¬ 
swered, “ About a year, I think.” 

“ I say,” said Prestwick, admiringly, “ you know a 
lot, don’t you ? ” 

“ About a year,” mused Calvert. “ In other words, 
quite long enough for a man like Mr. Charles Prest¬ 
wick, with no relatives at hand, to grow very depend¬ 
ent on her. She is, I imagine, the type that a man 
might come to depend on.” 

“ I should think one might,” agreed the nephew. 
“ Pm not saying anything against Miss Granby. I 
judge she’s a very good sort.” 

“ That’s very decent of you,” smiled Calvert. “ I 
hope she thinks the same thing of you; though I sup- 


THE GIRL AT NORTHFIEED 143 

pose she’s told you there’s no use in your staying 
around.” 

“ Why, yes, that’s exactly what she has told me, 
several times,” acknowledged Prestwick. “ She says 
it’s no use arguing with my uncle; he’s got some 
prejudice against me, though I can’t make out what it 
could possibly be.” 

“ Well,” said Calvert, “ are you going to stay? ” 

“ Oh, I’ll stick! ” laughed the nephew. “ I had some 
thought of climbing up to his window some night, and 
popping in on him. It would be a lark, if it didn’t 
scare him into fits.” 

“ Perhaps it would be just as well if it did,” said 
Calvert. “ I’m not a high-handed man by nature, but 
I’ve seen the efficacy of high-handed methods at cer¬ 
tain times.” 

The gray-blue eyes of the big, blond fellow turned 
admiringly to the face of this man who was so con¬ 
siderately interesting himself in the Prestwick family’s 
affairs. “Rum business, isn’t it?” he said. “One 
might think I was trying to get money or something 
out of Uncle Charlie, whereas I only want to shake 
his hand and give him news from England. And my 
father said Uncle Charlie was a jolly old soul, and 
would be no end pleased to see me.” 

“ Circumstances may have changed his disposition,” 
Calvert commented enigmatically. “ The atmosphere 


144 


CROOKED LANES 


about him- Yes, it might be a rum business,— 

I think that expression suits it.” 

On the road a large touring-car hove into sight and 
passed smoothly before the cottage. “ There’s Made¬ 
leine Legros,” said Ellen, “ with Mr. Welsh.” 

Prestwick wheeled about. “ She’s perfectly ripping, 
isn’t she? I’ve seen her a number of times, but I 
haven’t met her yet.” 

“ I’ll introduce you to her,” nodded Ellen. “ But I 
won’t be responsible.” 

Prestwick grinned. “ All right, Miss Massey. I 
never run from that sort of danger.” 

Presently he sauntered away, having assured Cal¬ 
vert in his friendly fashion that he hoped to see him 
soon again. 

“Well?” said Ellen. “He’s a perfect dear, isn’t 
he?” 

“ I don’t think I’m qualified to judge as to that,” 
was the answer. “ But he’s innocent as a lamb. If 
you do introduce him to Madeleine Legros, be sure 
you stand by to see that he doesn’t get into trouble.” 

“ Do you expect me to keep a grown man from 
burning his fingers at that kind of fire, Hamilton? 
If he wants to be so foolish, what can I do?” Her 
mischievous eyes searched her friend’s face. “ You 
wouldn’t have me try to start a counter-fire, would 
you?” 



THE GIRE AT NORTHFIEGD 145 


Calvert shook his head hastily. “ No, decidedly I 
wouldn’t.” He smiled, and then he frowned. “ I’ve 
outlined the situation to you, Ellen, but you haven’t 
made any suggestions. Assuming that Lunt was the 
criminal, why did he run away? His plan had ap¬ 
parently succeeded; and yet he didn’t wait to profit by 
it.” 

“ You’re having Lunt looked for, are you? ” 

“ I’ve sent his description broadcast. The police 
are hunting for him.” 

Ellen rested her head on her hand, and her eyes 
grew thoughtful. “ You’ve given me certain reasons 
to believe that Lunt left his boarding-house intending 
to commit a crime; you’ve provided a plausible mo¬ 
tive ; but you haven’t made it clear to me that he must 
have fired the shot. You think that Caradine was ex¬ 
pecting some one at his house that evening. Then why 
did he send his servant away, if he was going to deal 
with a dangerous man ? ” 

“ Exactly. Why did he ? That’s one stumbling- 
block.” 

“ Was he expecting Lunt? ” 

“ I don’t see why he should have been,” said Cal¬ 
vert. “ My theory is that Lunt knew all about Cara¬ 
dine, but Caradine nothing about Lunt.” 

“ Was he expecting Welsh? ” 

“ That’s more likely. And yet if he was, that 


146 CROOKED LANES 

doesn’t supply a reason for his sending Grant 
away.” 

“ It seems to me, Hamilton, that that’s the first prob¬ 
lem. What made Caradine act as he did ? Was there 
another man beside Lunt at Sherwood that night? ” 

“ If there was, he left even fewer traces than Lunt 
did,” Calvert answered. “ I agree with you, however. 
That is the first problem. And, though I can see what 
Lunt might have intended, I can’t get hold of Cara- 
dine’s end of the situation, puzzle over it as I may.” 

“ Never mind. It’s a big step forward to know 
what the real problems are. And now about the man 
you traced to the Newbridge station. Do you think 
he was Lunt ? ” 

“ Really I don’t know, Ellen. That fellow baffles 
me. If he was Lunt, why should he have been over 
at Newbridge?” 

“ Well, Lunt must have gone somewhere,” she re¬ 
torted. “ He wasn’t in the house when you and Mr. 
Blythe searched it.” 

“ No, I don’t think he was.” 

“ Well, people don’t simply vanish, without leaving 
any trace. I think your second problem, Hamilton, is 
to find out who the man at Newbridge was, and why 
he didn’t take that train.” 

“ That’s almost as hard a nut to crack as the first 
one, Ellen,” said Calvert, making a wry face. 


THE GIRL AT NORTHEIELD 147 

“ Big cases hinge on little things,” Ellen reminded 
him. “ We’ve found that out before.” 

Calvert nodded. “ But meantime our friends the 
enemy are having things their own way. I want to 
bring them up with a jerk. If we could only lay our 
hands on Lunt-” 

Ellen leaned forward. “ Why not arrest him ? ” 
she exclaimed. 

“ I tell you nobody’s been able to get a glimpse of 
him,” said Calvert. “ You know that. What do you 
mean ? ” 

“ Just what I said,” she smiled. “ Why don’t you 
have Lunt arrested? ” 

He looked at her for a moment, and then, as he 
caught her meaning, his eyes widened. 

“By Jove, that’s an idea! Why didn’t I think of 
that? ” 

“ You must let me have some brilliant ideas my¬ 
self,” she said, shaking her head at him. 

“ It is a brilliant idea. I must think that over. Lunt 
arrested—that would make a sensation! ” 

For a few minutes he reflected. “ I must get all the 
facts in hand first. The Welsh household; and Charles 
Prestwick. They’re all tied up together, you know.” 

“ I’ll keep watch on the Prestwicks,” said Ellen. 

“ See that the ingenuous Frank doesn’t put himself 
in the way of danger. And I must have another talk 



148 


CROOKED LANES 


with Nancy Hackett.” Calvert rose, and beamed at 
the pretty girl. “ I declare, Ellen, I don’t know what 
I’d do without you. You’ve got real brains in your 
head.” 

She pouted. “ Brains may be useful; but I’d rather 
have you admire my beautiful chestnut tresses.” 

“ Silly! Of course I admire them. That goes with¬ 
out saying.” 

“ It’s nice to have you remind me of them now and 
then, Hamilton. Other people do. That Frank Prest¬ 
wick ——” 

“ He’s only a young puppy! ” 

“ Some puppies can be very nice.” 

“ Now, Ellen, don’t you try to bewitch him. That 
isn’t part of the program.” 

She shook her head mock-seriously. “ You told me 
to keep him out of danger.” 

“ And you think that’s a proper way to do it? El¬ 
len, I’m surprised at you! ” 

He held out his hand, and she gave him the tips of 
her fingers. “ Good-afternoon, Hamilton,” she said. 
” You keep your thoughts on those two important 
problems, and leave the young puppy to me.” 



XI 


NANCY HACKETT’S GAME 

Joshua Mason, engaged on Monday morning in 
looking through the pile of letters that had accumu¬ 
lated during a week’s absence from his office, glanced 
at the card his clerk presented to him, and gave per¬ 
mission for the caller to be shown in by a gracious 
wave of his long-fingered, well-kept hand. 

He stood up and offered his hand to the gentleman 
in white flannels, who smiled and made a pleasant bow. 
“How do you do, Mr. Calvert?” said the lawyer. 
“ But I scarcely need to ask that question. Any one 
could see you’re enjoying your vacation.” 

“ I might say the same to you, sir,” was the affable 
reply. 

“ My vacation ? ” laughed Mason. “ Look at that 
pile of correspondence I’m trying to make my way 
through.” 

“ Lawyers rarely give the impression of being busy,” 
said Calvert. “Of course one knows that actually 
they are pondering engrossing problems, but they do 
it without unnecessary motion. I work in the same 
way. But if you really have to read all those letters 
I oughtn’t to interrupt you now.” 


150 


CROOKED LANES 


“ My dear fellow, sit down. The court’s not in ses¬ 
sion, most of my clients are behaving very well, and 
I’d enjoy a chat. How is the Peacock Inn, and our 
mutual friend, Miss Fordyce? ” 

“ The inn,” said Calvert, taking a chair, “ is doing 
a good business, though the innkeeper and his wife 
are constantly tempted to give two dollars’ worth of 
service for every dollar they receive. Miss Fordyce 
is as completely satisfactory as any one could wish.” 

“ She’s a fine young woman,” agreed Mason. 
“ She’ll not make ducks and drakes of the Caradine 
estate.” 

“ She and Mrs. Welsh have struck up quite a friend¬ 
ship,” Calvert continued. “ I think you rather hoped 
they might.” 

“I did. Lilian Welsh is a woman I admire, and, 
between ourselves, Mr. Calvert, she needs such a friend 
as Miss Fordyce.” 

“ Things are not going exactly smoothly with her,” 
nodded the caller. “ What is it the President of the 
Lhiited States is supposed to discuss in his annual mes¬ 
sage to Congress? The state of the nation, I think 
the phrase is. Well, I’ve come to discuss the state of 
Westminster County with you. Things are not going 
smoothly here.” 

The lawyer placed the tips of his fingers neatly to¬ 
gether, and over them gazed steadily into Calvert’s 


NANCY HACKETT’S GAME 151 

eyes. “ You speak as an amicus curiae,—friend of the 
court? ” he asked. 

“ I speak as the friend of John Caradine. I don’t 
know how much you knew about him, but I know 
many interesting facts. He found that much that was 
going on in Westminster was crooked, and he started 
to clear things up. Of course he made enemies; that 
was to be expected. Odin Welsh was one of his 
enemies; indeed, the chief one.” 

Mason’s gaze didn’t shift or waver; his attention 
was completely concentrated. 

“ You may, of course, tell Odin Welsh what I am 
telling you,” said Calvert, “ but I think it will not 
impress him. He’s lost his grip on himself.” 

Then the lawyer altered his position. He swung 
back in his swivel chair, glanced up at the portrait of 
John Marshall, fingered his clean-shaven chin. “ Why 
do you tell me this ? ” he questioned. 

“ Because I hope you will try to keep Mrs. Welsh’s 
property,—as much of it as you can,—from being in¬ 
volved in her husband’s business downfall. West¬ 
minster is going to be cleaned up, and I take it that 
you know enough about the ramifications of business 
here to see that that means that Odin Welsh’s reign 
is over.” 

“ Well, well, Mr. Calvert,” said Mason, “ I’d no 
idea that you were concerned in all this. You’re mak- 


152 CROOKED LANES 

ing yourself the moral successor of John Caradine, 
are you? ” 

“ You may put it that way, if you choose.” 

The lawyer’s hand shaded his eyes for some min¬ 
utes while he appeared to be considering this curious 
situation. 

“You know that Mr. Welsh has an agent, who 
is attending to many of his business interests?” he 
asked. 

“ You mean Brewster? ” 

“ Yes, Brewster. He is decidedly shrewd.” 

“ I don’t care how shrewd he is,” said Calvert 
quietly. “ He can’t keep Welsh from running on the 
rocks.” 

“It’s most unfortunate. Odin Welsh has been an 
exceptionally able man.” 

“ Perhaps he has, from a lawyer’s standpoint,” ad¬ 
mitted Calvert drily. “It’s too bad that the able 
counsellors who can keep a man out of the grip of the 
law can’t also keep him clear from the grip of pas- 

• jy 

sion. 

“ I wish they could,” agreed Mason, with a smile. 
“ But the influence of the strange woman, in spite of 
counsellors and family, of business success and social 
position, has not infrequently been the factor that has 
wrecked an able man’s career. There’s something dev¬ 
ilish about it, like the spell or incantation that was laid 


NANCY HACKETT’S GAME 153 

on men in the old tales of witchcraft. I’ve known men 
who have loyally and honestly fought against it, only 
to see them drawn away like filings caught by a mag¬ 
net. The world is quick to condemn; and yet, Mr. 
Calvert, how little the world really knows in most 
cases of the individual’s struggle.” 

“ The world’s opinion,” said Calvert, “ is founded 
on the fact that it has to insist on a certain standard 
if it is to preserve society.” 

“ That is perfectly true. Well, sir, I have known 
Odin Welsh a long time, but I have no intention of 
excusing his present course of conduct. I will do what 
you ask, so far as I am able. Mrs. Welsh frequently 
consults me about her investments; I will try to keep 
her clear of any unwise entanglements.” 

Calvert bowed his thanks. “ I hoped you would 
say that. Now I have a question to ask you. Do you 
happen to represent Mr. Charles Prestwick, of North- 
field?” 

“Charles Prestwick? No. I know him. He’s a 
quiet, elderly man. He used to keep quite a large ac¬ 
count at our Commercial Bank here; I believe he still 
does, though I haven’t seen him for some time. I hope 
he isn’t in trouble.” 

“ I’m interested in him,” said Calvert, non-com¬ 
mittally. “ My attention, you see, is directed toward 
a number of people in Westminster County. But, 


154 CROOKED LANES 

speaking of the Commercial Bank, you’re a director, 
aren’t you? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I wonder if you ever heard of one of the tellers 
there,—a man named Samuel Lunt? ” 

The lawyer puzzled over the name. “Lunt? Let 
me see. . . . Why, he’s the man who left and 

hasn’t come back, isn’t he? I remember hearing that 
mentioned at a directors’ meeting. There was nothing 
wrong with his accounts.” 

Calvert took out his pocketbook, and from it pro¬ 
duced the newspaper photograph he had kept in the 
drawer of his table at the inn. He handed this to 
Mason. 

“ Have you ever seen the original of that pic¬ 
ture ? ” 

Mason looked at the photograph attentively. 

“ Certainly I have. That is,” he began to temporize, 
“ I feel fairly certain that I have. You’ve torn off the 
name.” 

“ Newspaper pictures aren’t ordinarily very reli¬ 
able,” said Calvert. “ But that one, I judge, must be 
pretty good. I never saw Lunt myself.” 

The lawyer bounced up in his swivel-chair, his feet 
came down on the floor in a bump. 

“ Do you mean to say-” 

Calvert nodded. 



NANCY HACKETTS GAME 


155 


Joshua Mason was intensely interested. He looked 
at the picture again; then turned to Calvert. 

“ But, I say, sir, is this a picture of Lunt? ” 

“ It has a strong resemblance to him.” 

The lawyer scrutinized Calvert’s face with new at¬ 
tention. ‘‘You showed me this for some purpose, of 
course. What do you think about it ? ” 

“ It’s opened up various possibilities to me,” an¬ 
swered Calvert. “ But I’d rather not discuss them 
just yet. And I’m going to ask you not to mention 
this matter to any one for a few days. What I wanted 
to know is whether you recognized that picture as the 
face of a clerk who was employed in your bank. I 
see that you didn’t.” 

“ No, I certainly didn’t. But then directors aren’t 
always as familiar with their clerks as they might be. 
I don’t remember ever coming into personal contact 
with Lunt.” 

“ The circumstances in which we see men often have 
a great deal to do with the attention, or lack of atten¬ 
tion, we pay to their appearance,” said Calvert. “ I’m 
not blaming the Board of Directors.” He took the 
picture from Mason and put it back in his pocketbook. 
“ Of course you had no idea what an interesting man 
your teller was.” 

“ You expect developments, Mr. Calvert? ” 

Calvert nodded. “ I told you,” he said, “ that West- 


156 


CROOKED LANES 


minster was going to be cleaned up. I expect to have 
a small part in that praiseworthy enterprise. And if 
you will do your best, sir, to see that the innocent don’t 
suffer too much for the sins of the guilty, it will be 
a great satisfaction to me,—and, I think, to Miss For- 
dyce, as well. ,, 

“ You speak of her as the representative of John 
Caradine ? ” 

“ I do.” Calvert looked into the lawyer’s intelligent 
face. “ I think we understand each other, don’t we ? 
We want to see justice done.” 

“ Yes,” said Mason. “ I always felt a very fine 
honesty in John Caradine. Yes, I should like to see 
justice done.” 

Calvert stood up. Mason also rose, and in his dig¬ 
nified way held out his hand to his caller. “ I’m very 
glad you came to see me,” he said. “ And since we 
are so fortunate as to have a man like you taking up 
the cudgels for righteousness in our county, I as¬ 
sure you that any assistance I can render is entirely 
at your disposal.” 

“ That’s what I expected of you,” answered Calvert, 
shaking hands. 

The debonair man, who wore a rosebud in his but¬ 
tonhole, had other business in Westminster that Mon¬ 
day morning. He walked out to the suburban neigh¬ 
borhood where Nancy Hackett lived, and found that 


NANCY HACKETT’S GAME 


157 


young woman still enjoying her holiday. She invited 
him to her upper porch, where, in a gay, chintz-up¬ 
holstered easy chair she had been reading a novel and 
dipping her highly-manicured fingers into a large box 
of candy. 

She offered him the candy and also cigarettes. 
“ You look like a cat that’s been eating all the best 
cream,” she said. “ 1 expect you to curl up and purr. 
They make you pretty comfortable at the Peacock 
Inn.” 

He agreed with a smile, and settled himself in a 
wicker chair. Lighting a cigarette, he allowed his 
eyes to engage hers in indolent amusement. And pres¬ 
ently he said: “Is there any reason, Miss Hackett, 
why we shouldn’t talk like old friends? ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” she asked, her big brown 
eyes fencing with his. 

“ Why didn’t you tell Buell and Blythe that you 
saw Sam Lunt at the railroad station in Newbridge 
the night he left here? ” 

“ What are you talking about? ” 

“ You did see Lunt there, you know.” 

Nancy selected a chocolate from the box and ate 
it with deliberation. “ You seem to know a good deal 
about me. Is this what you mean by talking like old 
friends? ” 

“ How long have you known William Buell ? ” 


158 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Longer than I have you, anyway,” with a toss of 
the head. 

“ Well,” he said, “ I’ll tell you what I know, and 
you can tell me as much as you want to. You were 
visiting your sister in Newbridge on the evening of 
June third, and you went over to the railroad station 
about ten o’clock and met a man who was going to 
board a train.” 

“ And you think that is pretty important ? ” 

“ It happens that anything that concerns Lunt is 
important to me. I’m trying to find him.” 

“ You're trying to scare me. Well, you can’t. I 
don’t know anything about him. I hadn’t seen him 
for some time before he left Westminster.” 

“ That’s what you told William Buell. But are you 
sure that you hadn’t better tell me something more? 
You spoke to a man on the station platform at New¬ 
bridge, some one you’d known fairly well.” 

Nancy lighted a cigarette and leaned back in her 
chair, crossing her knees. Her expression, when she 
again looked up at Calvert, was smilingly demure. 

“ I don’t like people to ask me questions; but I sup¬ 
pose I must look on you as a privileged character. 
At least you seem to think you are. If it gives you 
any satisfaction to believe that I saw Sam at New¬ 
bridge that evening, I haven’t any objection. He 
and I were old friends, as lots of people here 


NANCY HACKETT’S GAME 159 

know. There’s nothing criminal in taking a train, is 
there ? ” 

“ Why didn’t you tell Buell about that? ” 

“ How do you know that I didn’t ? I think he knows 
quite as much about that as I do. If you want my 
opinion, here it is: Bill Buell could tell you a good 
deal about Sam, if he had a mind to.” 

“ Very well,” said Calvert. “ Then I’ll leave Buell 
out of this. What I want to establish is that Lunt 
was at the Newbridge station about ten o’clock that 
night.” 

Nancy laughed, a laugh full of enjoyment, as if she 
found Calvert’s curiosity vastly entertaining. “ Well, 
I don’t know how you’re going to establish it, no mat¬ 
ter how much you want to. For the truth is that I 
didn’t see Sam Lunt getting on a train that night, nor 
anywhere else in Newbridge. I haven’t seen him since 
a couple of weeks before he disappeared from his 
boarding-house. That’s gospel truth, and if you put 
me on a witness-stand, under oath, I’d say the same.” 

Calvert was used to the surprises that not infre¬ 
quently result from cross-examination, and his ex¬ 
pression showed neither astonishment nor protest. He 
flicked his cigarette over the balcony rail and brushed 
a trail of ashes from his coat with his handkerchief. 

“ I don’t doubt what you say for a moment,” he 
declared pleasantly. “ I was given a description of 


1G0 


CROOKED LANES 


the man in the cap with whom you were seen talking 
at Newbridge, and I thought he must be the same man 
as the one in the photograph you showed me here the 
other day.” 

“Well, he wasn’t,” said Nancy. “Not the same 
at all.” 

“ In a way that’s very unfortunate for Lunt,” mused 
Calvert, his glance traveling over the trees. “ For the 
man you were seen talking to didn’t act like a fugitive 
from justice.” 

Nancy’s amusement gave place to indignation. 
“ And why should any one think that Sam had been 
guilty of something?” she demanded. “There never 
was a more respectable citizen than he was! ” 

“ Perhaps,” said Calvert. For the second time that 
morning he took the newspaper photograph from his 
pocketbook. “ That may interest you.” He handed 
the picture to Nancy. 

She looked at it. “ Well ? ” she said. 

“ The police are hunting for that man. They’re 
using that photograph to identify him by.” 

“ But the man at the bank said there was nothing 
against him,” protested Nancy. “ I had that perfectly 
straight.” 

“ He isn’t wanted by the bank people. He’s wanted 
for the murder of John Caradine.” 

Nancy gasped. “What? Do you mean to say they 


NANCY HACKETT’S GAME 


161 


think Sam Lunt- . . . Why, that’s absolutely 

absurd! How could any one imagine such a thing ? ” 
Calvert reached out for the picture and took it from 
her. “ Absurd or not, that’s the way matters stand.” 

“ But what reason would he have had ? Sam was 
a quiet, very peaceable fellow. How could he possibly 
have shot Mr. Caradine? ” 

Calvert put the photograph away in his pocketbook. 
“ I’m not going into the motive now. I thought per¬ 
haps if you told me the true story of that incident at 
Newbridge it might throw some light on the affair.” 

“ It had nothing to do with Sam Lunt,” said Nancy 
positively. “ And if you’ve just come here to try to 
make me tell you things about him I don’t want to 
listen to you any more.” 

“ I’m sorry you feel that way about it.” Calvert 
rose. “ But this business has got beyond mere per¬ 
sonal feelings. Please don’t look upon me as an 
enemy. I’m only trying to get at the truth.” 

“ The truth! ” exclaimed Nancy. “ Well, I’ve told 
you the truth. And you’ll find it’s the truth too that 
Sam never did such a thing! ” 

“ Very well. In that case, there are no bones 
broken. Forgive me if I’ve given you an unpleasant 
half hour. Next time we meet I’ll try to be more 
agreeable.” 

He left Nancy on her balcony, and walked slowly 



102 


CROOKED LANES 


back to town. His line of reasoning would have to be 
altered, for Nancy had said that the man at the New¬ 
bridge station was not Lunt, and Calvert believed that 
she was telling the truth. 

Yet his sense of intuition told him that it was im¬ 
portant for him to know who that man was. In 
Nancy’s view he probably had nothing to do with the 
Caradine case; Calvert thought that such a connection 
had never entered her mind. But in Calvert’s opinion 
the man did have some connection with the tragedy at 
Sherwood. He could not explain why he felt so; but 
he undoubtedly did. Coincidences have to be ex¬ 
plained. At one end of the chain was the fact 
that Lunt had left town on the same evening that 
Caradine had been shot and hadn’t been heard from 
since, and at the other end was the fact that a man 
who had boarded the trolley at its nearest stopping- 
place to Sherwood at a little after nine o’clock had been 
an old friend of Nancy’s, or had been taken by her 
to be an old friend. At this point Calvert halted; his 
argument had brought him to a new and most sur¬ 
prising question. 


XII 


THE BOAT ON THE POND 

Edward Grant, finishing his lunch in the kitchen 
at Sherwood, was surprised to see Calvert walk in and 
sit down at the table. 

“ What can I do for you, sir ? ” he asked, getting 
quickly to his feet. 

“ Sit down and listen to me. And please don’t be 
surprised at any questions I may ask you. Do you 
think you can manage that? ” 

“ I’ll try to, sir.” Grant slipped back in his chair 
and sat there, bolt upright, trying not to smile. 

“ My questions may seem to you a little—well, a 
little distasteful. But please overlook that. They’re 
not meant to be taken personally.” 

Calvert tilted his chair back so that it stood on two 
legs, and fixed a keen eye on the solemn-visaged serv¬ 
ant. “Now, Grant, I want to ask you this: suppose 
that you had planned to kill a man here, and wanted 
to dispose of his body so that it couldn’t be found, 
what would you do with it ? ” 

The listener’s eyes grew large as saucers. “ Why, 
Mr. Calvert, sir, you’re not thinking that I-” 



164 


CROOKED LANES 


“ No,” Calvert interrupted. “ I said there was noth¬ 
ing personal about this. What I want you to do is to 
think, and then tell me how you would manage it. 
The question is perfectly simple. You want to dispose 
of the body quickly and easily, and so that it can’t be 
found.” 

“ Indeed, sir-” stammered Grant, looking as 

uncomfortable as it was possible for so decorous a 
man to look. 

“ You’re not endowed with the gift of imagination, 
are you? ” said Calvert. “ Well, let me put it in an¬ 
other way. Suppose I wanted to get rid of such a 
body, what course would I probably adopt? ” 

“ I haven’t the least idea, sir,” Grant responded, his 
expression indicating a fixed resolve not to show any 
surprise, no matter what this extraordinary man might 
say. 

“ I asked you that question,” said Calvert, “ because 
I thought you might possibly know of some pit or 
quarry in the neighborhood, some place where no one 
was apt to go; perhaps some pond-” 

“ There is a pond, sir, on the Caradine place, and 
not very far from the driveway.” 

Calvert allowed the front legs of his chair to come 
down smartly on the floor. “ I’ve never noticed it 
when I’ve walked up here.” 

“ No, you wouldn’t. It’s completely hidden from 




THE BOAT ON THE POND 


165 


the road by trees and bushes. No one ever goes down 
there, though there’s a path from the left of the drive 
as you come up; and I think there’s an old boat. I 
happened to take that path one day last spring; but 
I’d forgotten all about it till you mentioned a pond 
just now.” 

“ I must have a look at it,” said Calvert, standing 
up. “ Will you show me the way ? ” 

The two men went down the drive; but Grant had 
considerable difficulty in finding the point where the 
path branched off. Rhododendron bushes grew in 
thick clumps underneath the trees, and it was neces¬ 
sary to try three or four places, pushing the shrubs 
aside, before the opening of an old footway could be 
discovered in the thicket. 

“ You can see it hasn’t been much used, sir,” said 
Grant, pushing the bushes aside and ducking under the 
limbs of trees. “ The pond’s right down here, at the 
foot of this ridge. There, you can see it now, a little 
to the right.” 

Calvert saw the shining stretch of water, an oval 
expanse not unlike a well set in a cup of wooded 
slopes. 

“ It’s easier getting down here than it would be get¬ 
ting up,” he said, following Grant, and stopping every 
few steps to disentangle briers that caught at his legs. 

The path came out on a small beach of pebbles. A 


1G6 


CROOKED LANES 


dozen yards away an ancient rowboat lay half-con¬ 
cealed in the rushes. But for that dingy craft there 
was nothing to show that the pond had ever been 
visited by human beings. 

“ Would you care to look at the boat, sir? ” Grant 
inquired. 

“ Indeed I would. ” 

Stepping across the beach, Calvert reached for the 
bow of the boat and pulled it over to the pebbles. 

“ It hasn’t been used for a long time,” said Grant. 

“ And yet there’s not much water in it,” observed 
Calvert. “ That looks as if some one had bailed it 
out, or tipped it up on one side. A man could easily 
do that by himself. But what is particularly inter¬ 
esting is what’s in the boat.” 

“ You mean the oars? ” asked Grant. 

“ No, I don’t mean the oars. You’d expect to find 
them in a boat. But what is that long pole doing 
there? And that heavy stone fastened securely at the 
end of a rope? ” 

“ It doesn’t look like a fishing-rod, does it ? There 
isn’t any line.” 

Calvert shook his head. “ That wasn’t used for 
fishing.” 

“ That stone might have been used for an anchor,” 
Grant suggested. 

“ An anchor is usually attached to the boat,” said 


THE BOAT ON THE POND 167 

Calvert. “ The end of that rope is lying loose on the 
thwart.” 

After a moment Calvert lifted the stone, the pair 
of oars, and the long pole out of the boat. Then he 
tilted the boat on one side, and the water in the bottom 
ran out. 

“ We’ll leave the stone on shore,” he said, “ but 
we’ll take the oars and the pole. Do you want to row 
out with me, say to the middle of the pond ? ” 

Grant acquiesced, and took the seat at the stern. 
Calvert picked up the oars and pulled out over the 
water. Somewhere near the centre of the pond he 
stopped, picked up the pole, and thrust it over the side. 

“ I can’t touch bottom with this,” he stated, “ and 
it’s a good twelve feet long. That’s what I thought. 
Some one made use of this pole for the same purpose 
I’ve used it now.” 

A few minutes later they were again on the beach, 
and the boat was pulled up in the rushes. Calvert 
rubbed the dirt from his palms and looked at his 
companion. “ Having in mind the question I asked 
you at the house,” he said, “ I think you’ll see that 
we’ve found a satisfactory answer. If any one wanted 
to dispose of a body in such a way that it couldn’t be 
discovered, what would be better than to bring it in 
an automobile down the drive to the path, put it in 
that boat, tie that stone to it, and sink it in the pond ? ” 


168 


CROOKED LANES 


Grant stared in amazement. 

“ And what’s more,” continued Calvert, “ it’s my 
firm conviction that that is what the man who shot 
John Caradine had planned to do. He knew of this 
pond, knew how well it was hidden; he had come here 
and sounded its depth with that pole, and he had tied 
a rope to that stone. He also knew there was a car 
in the garage. John Caradine would disappear, and 
no one be any the wiser. And in all likelihood no 
one would ever find the body, even if they looked 
for it; and he expected, as he had matters arranged, 
that no one would ever think of making such a 
search.” 

“ But the man didn’t do it,” Grant objected. 

“ No, he didn’t. However, we’ve established, in my 
opinion, a clear case of premeditated murder, the de¬ 
tails carefully worked out; but something happened to 
make the criminal alter his plans. What was it? Did 
some one arrive at the opportune moment to spoil his 
scheme ? It seems as if that must have been it. Other¬ 
wise he had the place to himself. Now who could that 
some one have been ? ” 

Grant had no suggestion to offer. He shook his 
head, as if the problems brought up by Calvert were 
entirely beyond his ability at speculation. 

Musingly, Calvert, followed by his companion, 
climbed the path up to the driveway. He had not 


THE BOAT ON THE POND 


169 


quite reached the road when he stopped as if some¬ 
thing had caught his eye, and began to push through 
the bushes. 

In a moment he was back on the path, holding a 
small brown leather bag in his hand. 

“See that!” he exclaimed. “Now how did that 
traveling-bag get there ? ” 

“ I never saw it before, sir,” said the mystified 
Grant. 

Calvert looked at each end of the bag; there was no 
name and no initials. He tried the catch; it was not 
locked; he opened it, and drew out a shirt, a collar, 
several handkerchiefs, and some simple toilet articles. 
At each he looked carefully; none bore any indication 
of the owner. 

“ Very good,” said Calvert. “ The gentleman left 
that here when he went up to call at Sherwood, pre¬ 
sumably intending to retrieve it later, when he’d 
finished the first part of his business. A useful link 
in the chain, particularly when coupled with the boat 
on the pond.” 

Putting the contents in the bag, he stepped out on 
to the driveway and walked up to the house. 

“ I’m going to lock this bag in a closet and take the 
key,” he told Grant. And when Grant had pointed 
out a closet he might use for that purpose, and Cal¬ 
vert had made his find secure, he turned again to the 


170 


CROOKED LANES 


servant. “ Now,” said he, “ I’m going to ask you to 
come with me out to the garage.” 

Grant opened the doors of what had originally been 
the stable. They opened outward, but he did not push 
them all the way back. 

“ Is that the way the doors usually stand when 
you’re working on the car? ” asked Calvert. 

“ Why, I think so,” said Grant. “ The hinges are 
rusty, and the doors stick about there.” 

“ All right. Now please step inside and show me 
just where you were standing when Mr. Caradine came 
out here and talked to you,—told you to take a holi¬ 
day.” 

Grant went in, thought a moment, and then sta¬ 
tioned himself about ten yards from the doors. “ I 
was working on the headlights. I was stooping over 
just about here.” 

“ And where was Mr. Caradine standing? ” 

“ A little to one side of that left-hand door, as I 
remember.” 

Calvert took the position indicated by Grant. 
“ When Mr. Caradine appeared, naturally you looked 
around ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, I did.” 

“ It was fairly light, so early in the evening? ” 

“ I had that bulb turned on in here,” said Grant, 
pointing to the wall. “ It was light in here; but 


THE BOAT ON THE POND 171 

I don’t remember how much light there was out¬ 
side.” 

“ And Mr. Caradine didn’t come any nearer to you 
than I am now ? ” 

Grant shook his head. “ I think he stayed right 
there. He only talked a few minutes.” 

“ Was he wearing a hat ? ” 

“ I couldn’t say as to that. I don’t suppose he was, 
as he’d just stepped out from the house.” 

“ There you go, Grant,” said Calvert in a tone of 
impatience. “ Drawing conclusions from things that 
you think are apt to be the case. Most people do that, 
of course; that’s why their evidence is so unreliable. 
How do you know that he had just stepped out from 
the house ? ” 

“ I supposed he must have, sir. He had gone to 
his study after dinner.” 

“ Very well. You can’t positively say whether he 
was wearing a hat or not. Do you ever wear glasses, 
Grant ? ” 

“ I do to read by; but not otherwise. Sometimes 
I think I ought to wear them.” 

“ I think perhaps you ought,” said Calvert amiably. 
“ Well, Mr. Caradine spoke to you for a few minutes, 
and then went away to the house.” 

But Grant was not to be caught a second time. “ I 
can’t say whether he went to the house. He went 


172 


CROOKED LANES 


away from where you’re standing. I didn’t watch 
him. I turned back to my work on the car.” 

Calvert laughed. “ I understand. Well, you’ve 
given me a pretty good account of what took place, 
and that’s what I wanted to know.” 

“ Surely you don’t think that Mr. Caradine was 
trying to deceive me ? ” said Grant, as the two men 
walked to the kitchen door. 

“ No, I don’t think that Mr. Caradine was trying 
to deceive you,” answered Calvert. “ But I do think 
there was considerable deception going on here that 
night.” 

In the house again, Calvert asked: “ Are all of Mr. 
Caradine’s things here?—His clothing, I mean?” 

“ Everything, sir. His overcoats and hats are still 
in the closet in the hall, and the other things up in his 
bedroom.” 

“ I’d like to take a look at them.” 

Calvert ransacked the hall closet and also the room 
above stairs. When he came down Grant was waiting 
by the study door. “ The art of putting two and 
two together,” observed Calvert, “ is as old as the 
hills, and yet new light is constantly being shed on 
it.” 

“ You’ve found something, sir? ” asked Grant. 

“ No; better than that. I’ve found that something 
is missing.” 


THE BOAT ON THE POND 173 

“ That’s queer. I’m always very careful to lock the 
doors when I go out.” 

“ It’s not your fault, my good fellow. This par¬ 
ticular thing—or rather things—were missing, in my 
opinion, before Blythe and I climbed in at that win¬ 
dow on the night of June third. By the way, it was 
your custom to lock all these downstairs windows 
every night, wasn’t it ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. But that night I didn’t. I supposed that 
Mr. Caradine would attend to it.” Grant shook his 
head. “ I wish now that I had.” 

“ A trivial detail,” Calvert reassured him. “ I don’t 
think you need blame yourself for any negligence.” 

“ I’m glad to hear you say that.” Grant hesitated, 
then his curiosity overcame his training. “ I gather 
that you think a man came here, intending to kill Mr. 
Caradine and sink his body in the lake; but I don’t 
understand what else you’ve discovered.” 

“ And I can’t blame you for that,” said Calvert. 
“ There are three men who were here that night to 
be accounted for. I know a good deal about two of 

them, but the third- . . . Well, he’s the most 

illusive creature I’ve ever come across. And that’s 
saying a good deal, Grant. I’ve got to reconstruct him 
out of a missing cap and a light overcoat.” 



XIII 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 

The little car was climbing up the hill from North- 
field to the west. Twilight was drawing a veil over 
woods and meadows; in the valley was a white carpet 
of mist. Ahead shone the evening star; it winked and 
beckoned and winked again. The night was cool for 
midsummer, and Ellen Massey drew her red cloak 
closer about her shoulders. 

“ How lonely and still it is! ” she said. “ Farmers 
don’t feel it, I suppose. It takes city-dwellers like us 
to appreciate its true flavor.” 

The man at the wheel smiled. “ You wouldn’t care 
to be a farmer’s wife, would you? ” 

“ I should hate it,” she said vehemently. “ I should 
forget to feed the chickens while I listened for the 
whirr of trolleys.” 

“ That’s one fear off my mind then. I had some 
compunctions about bringing you to so bucolic a place 
as Northfield.” 

“ Oh, I’m doing very well, thank you. Frank Prest¬ 
wick took me for a walk this afternoon.” 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 175 

“ He didn’t say anything more about breaking into 
his uncle’s house, did he ? ” 

“ He didn’t even mention his uncle. He gave me 
quite a discourse on the differences he had discovered 
between English and American girls.” 

“ And which does His Highness prefer? ” 

“ He said that he formerly had a decided preference 
for John Bull’s daughters;—it seems that there was 
a Lady Cynthia Something-or-other that he thought 
was just about all right;—but lately he has come to 
feel that there’s a good deal to be said for the feminine 
progeny of Uncle Sam. He became quite eloquent 
about it.” 

“ He’s an artful fellow, Ellen. But that long, low 
house on the right must be our destination, I judge.” 

“ It is, Hamilton. I walked by here yesterday morn¬ 
ing.” 

To the right stretched open meadows. On the left, 
however, were thick woods, and it was in these that 
the crescent of a driveway led up to a house, lighted 
on the lower floor. 

“ Solitary, all right,” said Calvert. “ Why will 
these rich men choose such places to live in? I sup¬ 
pose he cares more for his trees and the view from his 
front windows than he does for his fellowmen. 
There’s safety in numbers, Ellen, both mentally and 
physically.” 


176 CROOKED LANES 

“ And yet you’ve found some rather interesting 
criminal problems right on Broadway,” she reminded 
him. 

“ True. People are people, wherever we come 
across them: good, bad, and mixed. Well, here we are 
at the door. I’m a lawyer, Ellen, whom Mr. Frank 
Prestwick has retained.” 

They got out of the car, and stopped a moment to 
look at the house. It was only two stories in height, 
the central portion, containing the front door, a square, 
squat tower, with two wings that held long rows of 
windows. A short distance from the right end was 
a stone garage, from which a light gleamed out 
through the half-opened door. The encircling woods 
lent the place an abnormal sense of quiet. 

Calvert touched Ellen on the arm, and she, who had 
been watching a figure move back and forth in the 
garage, turned and looked in the direction of his 
glance. 

From the third window on the upper floor of the 
right wing a man was staring at them. There was no 
light in the room inside, and the starshine only gave a 
pale illumination, but it was sufficient to show the 
countenance of an elderly man, whose eyes were fixed 
on them. 

Then slowly the man in the room pushed the lower 
window-frame up. He did it so cautiously that there 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 177 

was not a sound. Motionless, Calvert and Ellen 
watched him. 

The window was up, and the man had slightly in¬ 
clined his head as though to lean out through the open¬ 
ing, when some swift drama took place inside that the 
two observers couldn’t see. The man appeared to be 
drawn back, and the window was pushed down with a 
celerity that caused considerable noise. 

Ellen glanced at Calvert, and he nodded. Then, 
without further comment, he walked up to the front 
door. 

His ring at the bell was not immediately answered, 
but when inaction was beginning to make them impa¬ 
tient the door was opened and a woman appeared. 

The look she gave them was not altogether pleasant; 
it indicated that any chance interruption was not wel¬ 
come. But as Calvert took off his hat and asked, 
“ Have I the pleasure of speaking to Miss Granby? ” 
her dark face lighted a little. 

“ I am Miss Granby,” she said with dignity. “ Did 
you want to see me ? ” 

“ May we come in? ” he asked. And as the woman 
moved aside to allow them to enter he went on in his 
easy fashion, “ I’m combining pleasure with business. 
I’ve driven my friend Miss Massey out from North- 
field ; and I remembered that I ought to stop here. My 
name is Calvert.” 


178 


CROOKED LANES 


Miss Granby was of the gipsy type, as Ellen had 
previously described her; black hair, warm complexion, 
with rather prominent cheek-bones. She was a large 
woman, and yet so well-proportioned that she gave 
an appearance of grace. And the lighter note of the 
gipsy strain was shown in an evident liking for color, 
in the red-orange ribbon at the throat and the same 
color in the girdle of her dark dress. 

“Yes? ” she said, looking at the easy-mannered man 
and then at the pretty girl in the red cloak. 

“ Mr. Frank Prestwick has asked me to call on his 
behalf to see his uncle,” Calvert explained. “ The 
young man is quite upset. To have come all the way 
from England to see his uncle, and then to find his visit 
apparently so unwelcomed.” 

“ Mr. Charles Prestwick is an invalid,” said Miss 
Granby. “ I told the nephew that when he called 
here. He can’t stand any excitement, and for some 
reason he seems to have a dislike for any of his rela¬ 
tives. I’ve spoken to him about the young man sev¬ 
eral times, when I thought I could do it tactfully; and 
each time he has shown an almost morbid apprehen- 
sion. 

“ That is very pathetic,” commented Calvert. “ An 
elderly man, with no intimate friends, as I understand. 
And now to turn this fine, affectionate nephew away 
from his door! I hope, Miss Granby, that you have 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 


179 


used all your influence to make him be more reason¬ 
able. But there, I’m sure that you have. Such a 
woman as you would undoubtedly do her best.” 

Ellen smiled and nodded. “ Of course she would. 
I know how hard it is to manage invalids of that kind, 
those who have a fixed idea. The more you try 
to persuade them, the more unreasonable they be¬ 
come.” 

Miss Granby again eyed the girl. “ I think I will 
let you two see Mr. Prestwick,” she said. “ Perhaps 
that will convince you better than anything else. I 
may be able to persuade him to come down for a few 
minutes.” 

She went out of the large square hall, which was 
furnished as a sitting-room, and her steps could be 
heard going up a stairway somewhere at the rear. 

Calvert laid his hat on a chair, and his keen eyes 
darted here and there about the room, seeming to seize 
on every detail. He walked over to a writing-table 
and scrutinized the papers lying on its surface. Then 
from a brass letter rack he drew a folded newspaper 
and opened it out. A glance over his shoulder brought 
Ellen to his side. 

The newspaper was a New York evening sheet, 
dated June fourth, and on the front page was a column 
article relating to the shooting of John Caradine. 

“ A reminder and a weapon! ” Calvert murmured. 


180 CROOKED LANES 

Then he put the newspaper back, folded as he had 
found it. 

The two were sitting on a lounge, discussing country 
house architecture, when there were steps again on 
the hidden stairs. Through a doorway came Miss 
Granby, followed by an elderly, white-haired man, 
leaning on the arm of a tall, lean fellow. 

“ Mr. Prestwick, here are the gentleman and the 
young lady,” said Miss Granby. “ Joseph, I think Mr. 
Prestwick will be most comfortable in this chair.” She 
arranged the cushions and helped the invalid owner of 
the house to seat himself. 

“ I don’t think I precisely understand what they 
want,” said Prestwick, in a vague and slightly queru¬ 
lous voice, looking from the strangers to the strong 
and positive face of his housekeeper. 

“We want to persuade you to see your nephew 
Frank, sir,” said Calvert. “ He is a most amiable 
young man, with a natural desire to see his uncle.” 

The tall, lean man, who had taken up a position a 
few steps to the left of Prestwick, frowned a remon¬ 
strance at Miss Granby. “ Mr. Prestwick was to be 
kept from all excitement,” he interrupted. “ I don’t 
think you ought to make him talk to people.” 

“Oh, please!” put in Ellen. “We don’t want to 
make him do anything. But his nephew is such a nice 
fellow.” 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 


181 


Prestwick leaned forward, a light in his eyes. 

“ That’s good,” he said. “ I—I- . . . What 

do you think about it, Miss Granby? ” 

“ I prefer not to say,” she answered. Her dark 
eyes were fixed on her employer, who now turned to 
look at her, while his fingers picked at the chair arm. 
“ I think it’s high time you took some responsibility 
on your own shoulders.” 

“ You know what I think,” said the man on Prest¬ 
wick’s other side. “ Excitement. ... A young, 
impulsive fellow. . . .” 

“ Yes, yes, Saxe. To be sure, to be sure. I haven’t 
seen my nephew for a long time.” 

The white-crowned head turned from one servant 
to the other. “ After all, it’s not such a weighty mat¬ 
ter,” said Calvert in a cheery tone. “ An afternoon 
call would probably satisfy Frank.” 

“ You think so, do you? ” Again there was a note 
of eagerness in the voice. “ An afternoon call, Miss 
Granby ? ” 

“ It’s for you to decide,” said the sphinx. But, hav¬ 
ing said that, the tall woman placed her strong hand 
on the old man’s shrunken shoulder. “ I’ve told you 
not to fret yourself, haven’t I? There’s no good in 
your losing sleep over such a question.” 

“ No, no,” assented Prestwick, looking up into those 
deep, dark eyes that seemed to hold his in an almost 



182 CROOKED LANES 

hypnotic grip. “And I don’t sleep very well, as it 
is.” 

“ No wonder,” interjected Saxe. “ The things that 
have happened in this neighborhood ought to be a 
caution to any one, living out here where it’s so 
lonely.” 

“ Oh,” said Calvert, “ there’s been some trouble, has 
there ? ” 

Miss Granby held up a protesting hand. 

“ You haven’t been here very long,” Saxe persisted, 
“ or you’d have heard about it. The Caradine shoot¬ 
ing at Westminster. Mr. Prestwick read all about it 
in the newspaper. He knew Mr. Caradine’s father.” 

Prestwick was now hunched in his chair; his glance 
had turned to the hatchet-faced man, whose voice had 
an unpleasant rasp. 

“ Joseph, you know Mr. Prestwick doesn’t like that 
crime referred to,” Miss Granby admonished. 

“ He was shot for his money,” said Saxe brazenly. 
“ And they don’t know who committed the crime.” 

“ Yes, I have heard about that,” said Calvert. “ But 
I agree with Miss Granby. It’s not an agreeable sub¬ 
ject to discuss,” 

The tall woman gave him a grateful glance. “ It 
makes Mr. Prestwick fearful about admitting any one 
to the house,” she explained. “ He wants to have 
either Mr. Saxe or me with him all the time. And 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 


183 


that’s why, as you see, he has come to be so dependent 
on our advice.” 

“ Yes, yes,” murmured Prestwick, almost in a whis¬ 
per. '‘I do depend on you, Miss Granby; indeed I 
do.” 

“ An excellent plan,” agreed Calvert. “ And yet I 
can’t see how there can be any possible harm in Mr. 
Prestwick seeing his nephew.” 

“ Can there be any harm ? ” appealed Prestwick to 
the woman who towered above him. 

“ You decide,” she said, her sombre eyes on his. 

“ I—I-” Prestwick made a little helpless 

gesture. “ I can’t decide anything.” He waved his 
hand irritably in front of his face. “ No, go away, go 
away. Leave me here alone.” 

Ellen was about to speak, but Calvert, rising, pre¬ 
vented her. “Very well, Mr. Prestwick. Your 
nephew wouldn’t thank us for forcing an unpleasant 
situation. I’m sorry that you feel as you do about 
it; but I think I understand.” 

Prestwick nodded. He was not paying attention; 
his gaze was now fixed on Saxe, who had stepped close 
to him. 

“ You will take him up to his room, Joseph,” Miss 
Granby directed. 

The owner of the house got to his feet, put his arm 
in that of Saxe, and left the hall. 



184 


CROOKED LANES 


There was a moment of silence, broken by Miss 
Granby’s voice, which was now soft and mellow. “ I 
appreciate your kindness in coming here, even if Mr. 
Prestwick doesn’t. You have seen his state of mind 
for yourselves; vacillating, apprehensive. And that 
tragic affair at the Caradine place has completely 
unnerved him this summer. I wish Joseph Saxe 
wouldn’t refer to it; I have told him not to many 
times. ,, 

“ It does seem as if that affair were kept rather too 
persistently before the invalid’s mind,” assented Cal¬ 
vert. “ However, I’m sure you’re doing the best you 
can for him, Miss Granby. And please accept my 
thanks for your courteous reception of us.” 

She opened the door for them, and smiled most 
amiably as they left the house. 

“ A delightful woman,” Calvert said to Ellen. 
“ And what magnificent eyes! ” 

“Is that for her benefit?” whispered Ellen. 
“ Greenish-black eyes, like a cat’s.” 

They walked to the little car. Calvert helped Ellen 
in, then slipped to the seat at the wheel. He touched 
the starter, and the engine began to purr. 

Ellen laid her hand on his elbow. “ Look up at the 
window,” she whispered. 

Calvert, turning, saw a face close to the pane, the 
face of Charles Prestwick. And the same thing that 


THE MAN AT THE WINDOW 


185 


had happened before took place again. The man in 
the room slowly and silently pushed the lower window- 
frame up. 

Did he want to speak to them ? Did he have some¬ 
thing in his hand,—some hastily scrawled note, for 
instance,—that he wanted to throw out to them ? 

Calvert had his foot on the running-board of the 
car, and was about to step down, when from some¬ 
where close to the house came the short, sharp bark 
of a pistol. 

The window was instantly thrust shut, and Prest¬ 
wick vanished. 

“ That shot was fired at the edge of the trees near 
the garage,” said Ellen. 

“ Yes. And doubtless by our pleasant acquaintance 
Joseph Saxe,” added Calvert. He took his seat at the 
wheel again. “ There’s no use tempting Providence 
by trying to verify that opinion. It was meant to im¬ 
press Mr. Prestwick with the perils lurking around 
here, and to give notice to us, and through us to 
nephew Frank, that no one had better prowl about 
these particular preserves.” 

The car made the loop of the crescent drive and 
headed toward Northfield. 

“ We mustn’t let Frank come up here,” said Ellen. 
“ Those two are a vicious pair.” 

“If you find him coming up this road,” said Calvert, 


186 


CROOKED LANES 


“ you hang on to his coat-tails. That pair are capable 
of anything, Ellen. They’ve got Mr. Prestwick afraid 
of his own shadow.” 


XIV 


A LADY IN FLIGHT 

Herbert Eddy, his chores for the day done, was 
smoking a pipe and swinging his long legs from a bench 
he had put up at one end of the vegetable garden, 
a sort of grand stand, as he explained, from which his 
guests might watch the race between the lima beans 
and the peas. Also on the bench sat Hamilton Cal¬ 
vert, likewise smoking a pipe, and enjoying the com¬ 
pany of the friendly innkeeper. Eddy had a blunt way 
of expressing himself, and to Calvert, accustomed as 
he was to devious twists and turns of thought, straight¬ 
forward talk was always attractive. 

“ Marriage,” said Eddy, “ will be the making of 
Roger Blythe. A man never finds himself until he 
falls in love with a good woman. As I was saying to 
my wife the other day, ‘ If Roger doesn’t come to the 
point this summer, I wash my hands of him. The 
time, the place, and the girl; and our example to 
encourage him.’ ” 

“Yes, the time, the place, and the girl; and your 
example,” agreed Calvert. “ Our friend is certainly 
in the right atmosphere. And atmosphere has a great 


188 


CROOKED LANES 


deal to do with falling in love, as it has to do with 
committing crime.” 

“ Of course it has,” laughed Eddy. “ It ought to be 
as easy to fall in love here at the Peacock Inn as it 
would be hard to perpetrate a crime.” 

“ That’s due to Mrs. Eddy and you,” said Calvert 
with his pleasant smile. “ You make it easy for lov¬ 
ers.” He paused reflectively. “ Vicious people on the 
other hand frequently create the atmosphere for crime. 
It’s been done time and again. There was the case 
of the celebrated Maison d’Or at Marseilles. The 
owners were a perfectly respectable man and his wife; 
but they took in two lodgers, and those two, being ex¬ 
ceedingly subtle criminals, succeeded, by the poison of 
their influence, in converting the house and its owners 
into positive agents of evil. Suggestion, of course. 
Criminals use suggestion far more than is generally 
supposed.” 

“ You know a good deal about crime, don’t you? ” 
said Eddy. 

“ More than I do about love, you mean? ” laughed 
Calvert. “ Well, I wonder how much any of us really 
appreciate the temptations of others? Can the man 
who is happily married comprehend the poor fellow 
who is struggling with jealousy? Can the woman, 
successful as a wife, sympathize with that other woman 
who sees her husband lured away by an adventuress ? 


A LADY IN FLIGHT 


189 


And yet both those situations are common enough 
chapters in the books of love and crime.” 

Eddy smoked for a moment. “ There’s Mrs, Welsh, 
for a case in point,” he observed. 

“Yes, there’s Mrs, Welsh. This situation is none 
of her making. I believe that she loved her husband, 
far better than he deserved.” 

“ I’d like to talk to that fellow Welsh,” said Eddy 
savagely. “ I’d punch the blighter’s head.” 

“ Yes, I’ve felt that way myself,” agreed Calvert. 
He gave a characteristic shrug of the shoulders. “ In¬ 
stead we must take our satisfaction in seeing him 
fleeced to the queen’s taste. It’ll do him more good in 
the long run. And I shan’t raise a finger to help him 
save his face.” 

“ You talk as if you had a hand in this affair,” 
Eddy said, surprised. 

Calvert got up from the bench. With twinkling 
eyes he spread out the fingers of one hand. “ Each 
of those fingers has something to do with it,” he said. 
Then he shut his fingers slowly until they made a fist. 
“ And that’s what those fingers are doing, closing in 
on something. And I don’t think they’re going to 
let very much slip through them.” 

“ I say,” exclaimed Eddy, “ you speak like a magi¬ 
cian ! ” 

Calvert’s eyes, dancing, suddenly concentrated on 


190 CROOKED LANES 

something moving on the road. “ Where is Miss For- 
dyce ? ” he asked quickly. 

“ I think she’s gone for a stroll with Roger.” 

“ Where is Mrs. Eddy? ” 

“ She went over to see Susan’s mother.” 

“ Good. Then you and I will have the pleasure of 
welcoming Mrs. Welsh.” 

“ You’re the most extraordinary fellow,” said Eddy, 
knocking out his pipe. 

A moment later Calvert, swinging open the gate on 
the road, held out his hand for the small bag that 
Lilian Welsh carried. “ So you’ve come to make us 
a visit? ” he said. “ It’s too bad you had to walk up 
from the trolley. If I’d only known I’d have gone for 
you in the car.” 

“ Thank you.” Mrs. Welsh’s voice was low and 
troubled. “ I—I acted on impulse.” 

Calvert turned to Eddy. “ Mrs. Welsh shall have 
my room,” he said, as if there was nothing unusual 
in the lady arriving in such an informal fashion. 
“ Grant can fix me up a bunk at Sherwood.” 

“ Oh, that would be a shame, Mr. Calvert.” But 
without further remonstrance Mrs. Welsh walked up 
the path and went in at the front door. 

In the sitting-room Eddy explained that his wife 
was out at the moment. Mrs. Welsh took off her hat 
and sat down wearily in an easy chair. Calvert drew 


191 


A LADY IN FLIGHT 

Eddy into the hall, and whispered something to him. 
Then the former returned, and smiled at the pale-faced 
woman whose copper-red hair glowed in the soft lamp¬ 
light. 

“ You needn’t explain the situation to me,” he said. 
“ I think I understand it. May we be frank, as 
friends? ” 

“ I saw Mr. Mason this afternoon,” Mrs. Welsh 
answered; “ and he told me about you. Yes, Mr. Cal¬ 
vert, we may speak as friends, I think.” 

“ Good. Then let me tell you first that I believe 
everything is going to come out right. Right, that is, 
as I see it.” 

“ I don’t think that’s possible.” Lilian Welsh’s eyes 
turned from Calvert’s to the rug at her feet. 

“ Right,” he repeated. “ For the present you and 
Mr. Welsh cannot live under the same roof.” 

She shrank back a little at that. She was not used 
to baring her thoughts to a stranger. 

Calvert, however, had in high degree the gift of 
winning confidence. It lay in his eyes, his voice, his 
smile, the whole manner of him. “ You want to talk 
to some one,” he said, “ and I have the advantage over 
Mrs. Eddy or Miss Fordyce in knowing the situation 
from every angle.” 

“ I feel that you do know a good deal,” she said, 
“ though I don’t know why you should.” 


192 


CROOKED LANES 


He drew forward a chair and sat down. “ You said 
that you acted on impulse in coming here to-night; 
therefore I take it for granted that it was not a quar¬ 
rel with Mr. Welsh that made you leave your home.” 

“ We have never actually quarreled,” was her an¬ 
swer. “ My husband has simply gone his own way. 
For the last month we have had practically no private 
talks together. No, Mr. Calvert, it was as I said, an 
impulse; I felt as if I couldn’t stay in that house an 
hour longer. But that impulse has been gathering 
force for some time; there was a cloud hanging over 
me; I think I’d have left the house sooner if it hadn’t 
been for Mr. Brewster. He has been very kind to 
me.” 

That a man could live in the same house with this 
lovely woman and not be kind to her, Calvert re¬ 
flected, would indicate a most abnormal churlishness. 
He said, very gently, and in that reflective manner that 
made so many of his remarks seem almost impersonal, 
“ The house has been growing more and more dis¬ 
tasteful to you ever since the death of John Caradine.” 

She gave a slight start, instantly suppressed. “ You 
knew that he was a friend of mine? ” 

“ Yes, I knew of your friendship. There was no 
reason, so far as I can see, why the whole world 
shouldn’t have known of your friendship.” 

“ There wasn’t,” she said slowly. “ But Mr. Welsh 


A LADY IN FLIGHT 


193 


was, or pretended to be, very jealous. I’ve never been 
able to make out whether his feeling was real or largely 
assumed. I know, of course, that he didn’t like Mr. 
Caradine. Sometimes he talked very bitterly about 
him. And for that reason I was afraid to have them 
meet. I feared that my husband might say something 
disagreeable.” 

“ When I first investigated what happened at Sher¬ 
wood,” Calvert continued, “ and found that an un¬ 
known man had been there, and that Mr. Caradine had 
apparently sent his servant away so that Grant 
shouldn’t see his caller, I thought the unknown might 
have been Mr. Welsh.” 

“ I can understand that,” said Lilian, in an even, 
quiet tone that rather surprised Calvert. “ I thought 
all sorts of things myself at first; horrible things. But 
through all my puzzling about it I knew that Mr. 
Welsh would never have done any act of physical 
violence to Mr. Caradine. It’s hard to make an out¬ 
sider understand that; but I knew that such an act 
was not in my husband’s nature.” 

“ I’m entirely of your opinion,” agreed Calvert. 
“ But you did, for some reason, connect your husband, 
probably as an innocent participator, in something that 
led up to the tragedy, didn’t you ? ” 

Mrs. Welsh looked around the room. She was 
weighing something in her mind, something that she 


194 


CROOKED LANES 

had frequently thought of mentioning to Joshua Ma¬ 
son, but from which she had been deterred by the fear 
that he might not understand. This man, however, 
was different; and the impulse that had brought her 
now to the Peacock Inn carried with it the desire to 
rid herself of mental struggles. She nodded, and fixed 
her eyes on Calvert’s. 

“ Yes, I did have a reason. On the afternoon of 
June second I chanced to overhear Mr. Welsh tele¬ 
phone to John Caradine at his house. My husband 
asked if Mr. Caradine would see him at Sherwood 
the next evening. Mr. Welsh was in his library, which 
is on the ground floor,—the windows were open,—and 
I was sitting on the terrace outside.” 

“ Did Mr. Welsh know you were there? ” 

“ I don’t know. He’d been in the library for some 
time, talking to Mr. Brewster.” 

“ Did he say anything to you about this after¬ 
ward ? ” 

“ No. He was busy for some time. I didn’t see 
him until dinner, and then he didn’t mention it. And 
under the circumstances I didn’t like to ask him about 
it.” 

“ And Mr. Brewster? ” 

“ He came out on the terrace presently, and chatted 
with me for a while. I have an idea that he thought 
I might have overheard, for he said something about 


A LADY IN FLIGHT 


195 


Mr. Welsh having business with Mr. Caradine, and 
several times since he has said little things that indi¬ 
cated he thought I knew my husband had been tele¬ 
phoning Mr. Caradine.” 

Calvert’s glance shifted from Mrs. Welsh’s face to 
the flowered shade of the lamp that stood near her 
right elbow. “ Mr. Brewster is a man who’s rather 
in the habit of ‘ saying little things,’—dropping hints 
or suggestions,—isn’t he? ” 

“ He’s very much interested in everything that’s go¬ 
ing on,” Mrs. Welsh agreed. 

“ I thought so. I don’t doubt that he was very much 
interested in the ?act that you would probably over¬ 
hear that particular telephone talk; so much interested 
that he has made a point of seeing that you didn’t 
forget it. What you have told me is extremely in¬ 
teresting. Now please tell me what you know about 
the man Lunt.” 

“The man Lunt? I never heard of such a per¬ 
son.” 

She was telling the truth; there was no question of 
it. “ So then it must have been Mr. Welsh and Brew¬ 
ster who discussed Lunt,” said Calvert. “ What I 
would like to know is whether Brewster went to Sher¬ 
wood on the night of the crime.” 

“ I don’t think he did,” said Mrs. Welsh. “ I think 
he was reading in the library all that evening.” 


196 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Has it ever occurred to you as odd,” said Calvert, 
“ that although your husband was so jealous of John 
Caradine, he never entertained any such feeling in re¬ 
gard to Mr. Brewster? ” 

A quick flush rose in Lilian’s face. “ I- Well, 

the thought may have occurred to me. Oh, Mr. Cal¬ 
vert, it’s been such a nightmare! ” 

“ I know. And I’m very glad you’ve fled from it. 
The atmosphere of your house—your husband away 
so much of the time, and his secretary dropping little 
hints, little barbed, poisoned darts that stuck in your 
thoughts—no, it couldn’t have been agreeable. Ah, 
here comes Mrs. Eddy. Thanks for your confidences. 
They are safe with me.” 

Calvert went up to his room and packed his bag. 
When he came downstairs again Joan and Blythe had 
returned and he asked the former’s permission to take 
up his quarters at Sherwood. This was readily 
granted, and, putting his bag in the little car, Calvert 
drove over to the Caradine house. 

Grant admitted him, and made a guest-room ready. 
Calvert touched a match to the logs on the hearth in 
the study, and, lighting a pipe, settled down in a chair. 
He felt that he understood pretty accurately what had 
happened and how matters stood. He could have 
written a report that would give the officers of the 
law sufficient information to complete the job. But 



A LADY IN FLIGHT 197 

one point, and that the crux of the whole case from 
his viewpoint, still baffled and eluded him. 

He rose, and paced the floor. What had actually 
happened in that room on the night of June third? A 
man, with murder in his mind, murder carefully 
planned and provided for, had come into the house 
and had shot the owner. Why hadn’t the man carried 
out the plan he had so thoughtfully arranged ? What 
had become of Lunt, the murderer? And who was the 
other one, the man in the cap who, Calvert was con¬ 
vinced, had been at Sherwood that night? 

“ Of course the answer is simple,” he mused. “ It 
always is when you find it. The whole knot comes 
untied when you pull on the right string.” 

In his pacing he lifted his eyes to the portrait of 
John Caradine’s father that hung on the wall. The 
eyes regarded him with a half-humorous smile. 

“If only portraits could speak and tell what they’ve 
seen! ” he muttered. 

He stood there musing, considering all sorts of pos¬ 
sible explanations; and suddenly an inspiration came 
to him. 

“ That’s it! ” he cried half aloud. 

Grant, coming into the room, found Calvert appar¬ 
ently wrapt in admiration of the portrait. 

“ Is there anything you want, sir?” he inquired. 

“ No. I’ve got what I want. It was simple. No, 


198 


CROOKED LANES 


never mind. . . . Don't sit up, Grant. I may do 

some telephoning.” 

Seated at the desk, Calvert took the receiver from 
the hook, and calling for long distance, got a New 
York number. He talked for some time, giving vari¬ 
ous directions. 

That done, he next asked for a number in North- 
field. When the connection was made, he said: 

“ Hello! I want to speak to Miss Massey." 

Five minutes passed, and he heard a familiar voice. 

“ This is Hamilton, Ellen. I thought you’d like to 
know that Lunt will be arrested to-morrow." 

“ He will? Have you really found him? " 

“ Never mind about details over the telephone. But 
remember that with Lunt captured, anything is likely 
to happen. Keep your eye on that light mustache." 

“ I’ll try to, Hamilton. It’s rather dark on the 
porch to-night to see it very distinctly." 

“ Is he there now, Ellen? Why, it must be eleven 
o’clock!" 

A low laugh rippled on the wire. “ Shall I tell him 
you think it’s time for him to go? He’d enjoy that. 
Frank has a nice sense of humor." 

“ Frank?" 

“ Well, he asked me to call him that to-night. But 
I’ll say Mr. Prestwick, if you’d rather." 

“ See here, Ellen-" 



A LADY IN FLIGHT 


199 


“ Well, I’m looking. I mean I’m listening.” 

“ Remember that young man is virtually a stranger. 
This is a matter of business.” For a moment Calvert 
was confused. “ Oh, yes, I knew there was something 
else I wanted to tell you. I’ve moved over to Sher¬ 
wood from the Peacock Inn. You can get me here 
any time.” 

“ Thank you, Hamilton. I’ll try to remember all 
your instructions. Is there anything else you wanted 
to say? Very well then, good-night.” 

Calvert hung up the receiver. 

In spite of the fact that he thought he now knew 
the answer to the Caradine mystery, it wasn’t of that 
he was thinking as he went up to his room. 


XV 


WELSH TRIES TO EXPLAIN 

Grant was surprised to find the fresh-faced gentle¬ 
man reading in the study when he came downstairs 
next morning. Hamilton Calvert had evidently al¬ 
ready taken a stroll outdoors, for there was a spray 
of tiny crimson rambler roses fastened in the button¬ 
hole of his coat. “ Good-morning, Grant,” said the 
reader, “ I’ve been indulging in an early morning 
draught of poetry. There’s nothing like poetry—such 
as this of Robert Browning, for instance—to wash the 
mind clean of perplexing problems. There aren’t 
many volumes of poetry on the shelves here; I suppose 
John Caradine didn’t care for fanciful reading; but 
fortunately his father did. His name is on the fly¬ 
leaf of this Browning. That portrait now,—it’s a 
speaking likeness of the elder Caradine, I presume.” 

“ I can’t say as to that, sir. There’s a resemblance 
in it to Mr. John Caradine.” 

“The humorous mouth?” said Calvert. “Yes, 
Grant, I should very much like to have known your 
late master. He was an extremely original man. You 
remember the question we were discussing the other 
day? The question why the criminal who came here 


WELSH TRIES TO EXPLAIN 201 

on the night of June third didn’t carry out his original 
intention? Well, the reason is that his plan succeeded 
so admirably that he didn’t have to.” 

“ I don’t think I quite understand you, sir.” 

“ In other words, two men turned out to be three,” 
said Calvert. 

Grant wrestled with that for a moment, then shook 
his head. “ I used to have difficulty in following some 
of Mr. Caradine’s thoughts; but I find yours even 
harder to explain,” he declared. 

“ Well, you’re not to blame for that,” laughed Cal¬ 
vert. “ After all, a more pressing question is how 
soon can you let me have a couple of boiled eggs and 
a cup of coffee? ” 

The guest at Sherwood breakfasted, and then made 
use of the telephone. As a result of this, soon after 
the clock struck ten there was a ring at the door-bell 
and Grant ushered a caller into the study. 

Calvert laid down the volume of poetry and stood 
up. “ Good-morning, Mr. Welsh. Doubtless you will 
recall meeting me at the Peacock Inn.” 

Odin Welsh didn’t look in the least amiable. His 
high-colored cheeks, his prominent eyes, under sharply- 
defined black brows, indicated an arrogant temper that 
was quick to take offence. “ I do recall that, Mr. Cal¬ 
vert. I didn’t know at the time that you were con¬ 
nected with the police.” 


202 


CROOKED LANES 


“ No,” assented Calvert, waving his caller to a seat. 
“ But it will probably interest you now to know that 
I am. There are a number of things that I want you 
to explain.” 

“ Well, I don’t know about that,” was the somewhat 
truculent rejoinder. 

“ Of course you don’t have to answer my questions; 
but I think you will decide it would be better to. 
You’re a practical man.” 

Welsh sat down. “ Go ahead. I suppose I might 
require you to show me some credentials, but I’ll waive 
that.” 

Calvert smiled. He knew that the other man was 
about at the end of his rope, he knew the subtle in¬ 
fluences that had been playing on him. 

“You knew Samuel Lunt,” he said; “the teller of 
the Commercial Bank who hasn’t been seen or heard 
from since the night of June third.” 

“ I knew him as one of our employees. I never had 
any personal relations with him.” 

“ The man interested you, after certain personal 
characteristics of his had been called to your atten¬ 
tion.” 

Welsh pushed himself back in his chair, his elbows 
extending over the arms. 

“ You found out that the man was a rascal,” Calvert 
continued. “ I won’t go into details now. But you 


WELSH TRIES TO EXPLAIN 


203 


became very much interested in him. And you didn’t 
tell any of the officers of the bank what you knew 
about him.” 

“ We have safeguards at the bank that are sufficient 
to protect us against dishonest employees.” 

“ Perhaps there was no valid reason why you 
should have confided in your officials,” Calvert con¬ 
ceded. “ That, I take it, was a matter for your own 
conscience. But your conscience was undeniably 
callous when it came to a consideration of John Cara- 
dine. You knew the danger he stood in. You knew 
what Lunt planned.” 

Welsh’s face lost some of its color. “ You impute 
a good deal to me,” he retorted. 

“No more than I can prove. You even went so 
far as to telephone to John Caradine on the afternoon 
of June second, asking if he would see you here the 
next evening. You wanted to make sure that he 
would be at home when Lunt came.” 

“ You can’t prove that,” said Welsh. 

Calvert nodded. “ Oh, yes, I can. I can prove 
every step that I take. That’s my business. And I 
know who it was that suggested you should telephone.” 

Welsh looked into the clear, steel-like eyes of the 
man confronting him, and all his arrogance faded. 
His lips twitched, he put his hand to his mouth as if 
to hide it. He turned sideways in his chair. 


204 


CROOKED LANES 


“ You were a catspaw; but catspaws frequently find 
themselves in the prisoners’ dock,” Calvert continued. 
“A number of people knew that you hated John Cara- 
dine; you had told your wife not to meet him. You 
were cognizant of the plan of this man Lunt to destroy 
him, and you furthered that plan by making an ap¬ 
pointment with Caradine for that evening. Lunt came 
here, and you know what happened. But the point 
that is of particular importance to you now is that 
there was another man here also, a man who may 
have helped in the crime, and who left here by the 
trolley to Newbridge.” 

Calvert’s eyes and voice, even more than his words, 
were bitterly accusing. They bored into the other 
man. And Welsh, suddenly feeling like one who finds 
the sand shelving under his feet, grasped the arms of 
his chair and bent his big body forward. 

“ I wasn’t here that night. I can prove an alibi.” 

“ Prove it by whom ? ” 

Welsh moistened his lips. “ By Miss Legros. I 
was with her all that evening.” 

A smile played in Calvert’s eyes. “And would Miss 
Legros go on the stand and testify as to that?” he 
asked. 

“ You have nothing to connect me with the shooting 
of Caradine,” Welsh parried weakly. 

“ You haven’t answered my question,” said Calvert. 


WELSH TRIES TO EXPLAIN 205 

“ Would Miss Legros swear you were with her that 
evening ? ” 

“ Of course she would,” Welsh answered, though 
there was something in his voice that betokened a new 
lack of assurance. 

“ I know she is a friend of yours,” said Calvert. 
“ But—and this may be news to you—she is also a 
friend of Lunt. Suppose she is drawn in different 

9 

directions by her friendship for you two? ” 

“ What has Lunt got to do with this particular 
question about me ? ” 

“ Only that criminals love company,” explained 
Calvert; “ and sometimes the testimony they can give 
against others serves to lighten their own penalty.” 
He looked away from Welsh for a moment, and then, 
turning again, added: “ Lunt has been found. I heard 
from New York last night.” 

That was indeed news to Welsh, news which, by the 
startled expression of his face, had cast a fresh light 
on the various points of his talk with Calvert. “ Well,” 
he said, “ if Lunt has been found, I suppose you people 
will be able to get the true story of what did happen 
here.” 

“ But your own position,” Calvert pointed out, 
“ will be even more difficult than it is now. Who 
knows what Lunt may say, or what others, whose 
interests are very closely related to his, may decide to 


206 


CROOKED LANES 


tell, to save themselves, and put the burden of the 
whole conspiracy on your shoulders ? ” 

“ Mr. Calvert, I have been guilty of keeping silent 
about some things I ought to have spoken of; but I 
swear that I had no part whatever in the shooting of 
John Caradine.” 

“ Your guilt is greater than you admit,” Calvert 
said. “ You knew the imminent danger that threat¬ 
ened Caradine, and you failed to warn him of it.” 

Welsh rested his head in his hands, “ I don’t 
know—I don’t understand how all this has come 
about,” he muttered. “If any one had told me a year 
ago that I should be caught in such a net as this, I 
wouldn’t have believed them.” 

“ Evil associations corrupt good manners,” quoted 
Calvert. “ There is no saying that is truer than that. 
You have been unfortunate in the friends you have 
made lately; it has been their business to play upon 
your worst side—every man has his own temptations— 
and they have used you for their own ends. To-day 
you wouldn’t believe some of the things I could 
tell you; perhaps you will to-morrow. But in the 
meantime it’s for you to decide what stand you will 
take now that Lunt is arrested.” 

Calvert rose and walked to the window. He 
watched a fat robin bob about on the lawn. Welsh sat 
slumped in his chair, staring at the fireplace. 


WELSH TRIES TO EXPLAIN 


2*07 


“ I don’t like to talk morals,” Calvert said presently, 
slowly facing about. “ That is not my business. But 
I always feel a certain sympathy for a catspaw. I 
think you know, without my telling you, who repre¬ 
sents the good and who the evil in your present situa¬ 
tion. Face the music and tell the truth. You will 
have plenty of opportunity when the District Attorney 
questions you. But don’t rely on Miss Legros to 
prove your alibi; that would prove a slender reed.” 

Welsh looked up. “ What do you want me to 
do? I have told you the truth. I wasn’t here that 
night.” 

“ First of all, I want you to tell no one of our talk 
here this morning. As to the arrest of Lunt, every one 
will know that; it will be in the Westminster afternoon 
papers. And second, I want you to make up your 
mind to cut clear of all entangling alliances. No mat¬ 
ter what inducement is offered you, walk straight— 
absolutely straight—for the next twenty-four hours. 
Not the cause of justice—but your own salvation— 
will depend on that.” 

Welsh got to his feet. 

“ Mark what I say,” emphasized Calvert. “No 
matter what you do, we shall lay bare the whole his¬ 
tory of what has taken place. You can’t hide a bit of 
that. But what you can do is to turn about and 
win back something of what you’ve lost.” 


208 


CROOKED LANES 


The other man forced a smile. “ If that is all, HI 
say good-morning, Mr. Calvert.” 

At the window, ten minutes later, Calvert looked 
out at the sun-flecked trees. 

He mused: “No, Welsh wasn’t here that evening; 
but if ever a man had a guilty intent, that man is 
he. . . . Was I wrong in giving him this chance? 

No doubt his wife would be better off if he never 
turned up again; but I can’t stand seeing a woman 
like the Legros drag even such a fellow as Welsh 
down to perdition! I think even John Caradine would 
agree with me there.” 


XVI 


/ 


THE ARREST OF LUNT 

A trim-looking woman, eminently respectable and 
conservative, was chatting with Mrs. Simmons in the 
latter’s kitchen at Newbridge that same afternoon. 
“ Emma,” she was saying, “ that dapper Mr. Calvert 
hasn’t been in lately to buy any of your jellies, has 
he?” 

Mrs. Simmons regarded her friend with an amused 
eye. “ No, he hasn’t, Cora. You took quite a shine 
to him, didn’t you? Nice speaking fellow, and pleas¬ 
ant as you please. He’s over at the Peacock Inn, 
where that Miss Fordyce you’ve told me about is 
staying.” 

Cora Madison helped herself to a star-shaped ginger 
cookie from a plate on the table. “ Yes, I know, my 
dear. And that Miss Fordyce is worth a pile of 
money. But I don’t think our pleasant gentleman will 
have a hand in the spending of any of it. There’s 
a fellow named Blythe who’s always hovering around 
that particular young woman; he spends most of his 
time in the office she’s opened over at Westminster.” 

“ Yes, I’ve seen him too. He came here with Mr. 


210 CROOKED LANES 

t 

Calvert one day.” Mrs. Simmons also regaled herself 
with one of her fresh cakes. “ Now perhaps if I 
wrote a line to Mr. Calvert, saying I’d got a new 
stock of jellies, maybe he’d come over to get some, 
and then if you were here-” 

“ Now don’t you get it in your head, Emma, that 
I’m looking for another husband. I’ve had all the 
experience I want in that line. Men are the most 
selfish creatures. I could get on very well without 
any more of them.” 

“ You’re as different as you can be from my sister 
Nancy,” declared Mrs. Simmons. “ She’s always 
talking about some new fellow. I told you about that 
man she spoke to at the railroad station? It made 
me blush to see her,—the way she went up and asked 
what he was doing there.” 

“ Yes, you told me about that. I didn’t hear who 
the man was.” 

“ Neither did I. Nancy was mighty secret about 
him. I suppose that was one of her little affairs she 
didn’t want to have get out. Now there’s a new one, 
a fellow called William Buell.” 

Mrs. Madison nodded. “ I know who he is. 
Nancy’d better go slow with him. He’ll bear in¬ 
vestigating.” 

“ I haven’t met him,” said Mrs. Simmons casually. 
“ By the time Nancy gets through talking about a man 



THE ARREST OE LUNT 


211 


I’d run a mile to avoid having to meet him. But I 
feel differently about you, Cora; and if you’d like 
me to try to fix up a meeting with this Mr. Cal¬ 
vert -” 

“ I’d turn him down if he asked me to go to the 
movies,” was the prompt, unblushing answer. “ His 
clothes are too fancy for my taste. Tell me, dear, 
does your husband still make a daily delivery in North- 
field?” 

“ He sends the boy over every afternoon about five 
o’clock.” 

“ I suppose he knows where Mr. Prestwick lives. I 
want to send his housekeeper a note.” Mrs. Madison 
took a small, sealed envelope from her pocketbook. 
“ It’s to let her know that I think she can get that 
new place she wants if she’ll leave Mr. Prestwick 
now,” she explained, as if to forestall any later curi¬ 
osity on the part of Mrs. Simmons. 

“ Oh, yes; he sends things over there. Give it to 
me. I’ll see that the boy gets it. And speaking of 
Northfield reminds me that you said you knew Miss 
Legros. The gossip is that she’s traveling ’round 
with Odin Welsh.” 

Mrs. Madison made a fishy eye. ‘ “ I detest gossip. 
Miss Legros is a very refined and beautiful woman.” 

“ She’s beautiful all right, for a blonde,” Mrs. Sim¬ 
mons admitted. “ And I’ll take your word, Cora, for 



212 


CROOKED LANES 


her being refined. But she isn’t any Sunday school 
heroine all the same.” 

“ She’s French,” stated Cora Madison. “ French 
women are not so—so tight-laced as most women here 
are.” 

“Tight-laced?” Mrs. Simmons sniffed. “That’s 
a good way to put it. Well, all I’ve got to say is that 
if she don’t look out she’ll get herself talked about. 
I’m surprised at Mr. Welsh,—with a wife of his own, 
and she too a very refined and beautiful woman.” 

“ Now, Emma, understand—I’m not defending 
Odin Welsh. I never defend any man. I’ve had too 
much experience with their double-dealing. If he 
wants to make a fool of himself-” 

“ I guess he’s doing it, from what I hear,” said Mrs. 
Simmons a trifle tartly. “ I thought perhaps, if you 
were a friend of Miss Legros, you might like to give 
her a tip about the tight-laced customs of the women 
of this country.” 

“ She’d laugh at me. Trust her to know what she’s 
doing.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t think for a minute that she doesn’t 
know what she’s doing. That kind of woman does. 
As I tell my husband, 4 These here vampires-’ ” 

Mrs. Madison rose majestically. “ Yes, yes, Emma 
dear; but I don’t want to hear your views on vampires. 
Miss Legros is a lady, not one of those vulgar crea- 




213 


THE ARREST OF EUNT 

tures. And if you’ll see that the boy takes that note 
over to Northfield this afternoon, I’ll be ever so much 
obliged.” 

The eminently respectable woman, with a friendly 
nod and a little wave of the hand, sailed out of Mrs. 
Simmons’ kitchen. She had, however, perhaps by a 
trace of condescension in her words and manner, left 
a slight feeling of resentment in the bosom of her 
hostess. 

Mrs. Simmons looked at the envelope that she was 
to send to Northfield. She read the superscription: 
“Miss Granby; in care of Mr. Prestwick.” Lifting 
the paper to her nose, she sniffed it, and made a face. 
“ Lavender! What airs Cora does put on, to be 
sure! ” she murmured. 

“ It’s to let this Miss Granby know that she can get 
another place if she’ll leave Mr. Prestwick,” Mrs. 
Simmons said half-aloud. “ That’s rather underhand, 
I think. Seems to me it might be well to let Mr. 
Prestwick know that his housekeeper’s thinking of 
leaving.” She stood for a moment in thought. Then, 
opening the drawer of the table, she took out a pencil, 
and ran a line through Miss Granby’s name. 

“ There! Mr. Prestwick will get it, and he can turn 
it over to his housekeeper when he knows what she’s 
up to. It’s a nice business for Cora Madison to steal 
people’s servants away from them! Tight-laced 


214 


CROOKED LANES 


women indeed! I think it would be better for Cora 
to pay more attention to her own morals instead of 
defending French hussies! ” 

With the pleasant sense of having done a righteous 
deed, Mrs. Simmons laid the note on the dresser, and 
later took it over to her husband’s drug-store to be 
delivered by the errand boy in Northfield. 

Having made her call on her friend, who was an 
admirable source of information on local affairs, Mrs. 
Madison took the trolley at the town square and rode 
to Westminster. She stopped at the office of Odin 
Welsh, not to talk with that gentleman, but to leave 
another of her perfumed notes with one of his clerks. 
Then she walked toward her home in the suburban 
villa district. 

She caught sight of Nancy Hackett on her upper 
porch, and asked permission to come up for a few 
minutes. 

“ I’ve been out to see your sister, my dear,” she 
said, as she sat down. “ No, thank you, I don’t 
smoke. Emma was telling me that amusing story 
about the man you met at the station; you know, the 
one who was running away.” 

“ But he wasn’t running away,” Nancy contradicted, 
a smile in her big brown eyes. 

“ Not actually running away, of course,” assented 
Mrs. Madison. “ But Emma says that he was sur- 


THE ARREST OF LUNT 


215 


prised to see you. I think Emma’s a little bit piqued 
that you didn’t tell her more about him.” 

“ Well, I guess Emma will have to stay piqued.” 
Nancy could, on occasion, speak with decided firmness. 
“I suppose she had, a few things to tell you that 
weren’t concerned with my affairs.” 

“ Oh, she only spoke of that incidentally. Yes, she 
had quite a lot to say about people in Newbridge,—the 
Thompson girl has run away and married an auto¬ 
mobile salesman.” 

“Stupid place!” said Nancy. “I hate a small 
town like that.” 

“ There aren’t many unattached men there,” con¬ 
ceded Mrs. Madison. “An attractive girl like you can 
certainly have a much better time in a town the size of 
Westminster.” 

“ And how about you? ” responded Nancy, who was 
never averse to giving as good as she received. 
“ Didn’t I hear something about you the other day ? 
Let me see- Was it Bill Buell who told me? . . 

“ That man will get into trouble some day.” 

Nancy was distinctly surprised at the venom in Mrs. 
Madison’s tone, and, knowing something about this 
woman’s ability in mischief-making, she was inter¬ 
ested. 

“ What’s the matter with Bill? ” she asked. “ He’s 
the most harmless fellow.” 



216 


CROOKED LANES 


“ Harmless? We’ll make him harmless, if he doesn’t 
look out!” Then, as if realizing she had said too 
much, she changed to a gentler note. “ No, it’s the 
smooth-talking, harmless-seeming kind that a girl 
ought to beware of. I know what I’m telling you, 
Nancy. I’ve had plenty of experience with men.” 

“ I don’t doubt that, Cora.” Nancy’s smile was 
double-edged. “ But you can’t expect a girl like me 
to profit by your experience. I suppose Emma and 
you discussed my friend Bill? Did you decide I was 
getting too fond of him? ” 

Mrs. Madison ignored these queries. “ I think that 
man will be leaving Westminster soon,” she said in 
her oracular manner. “ There are some people who 
don’t find him desirable here. If I were you, I 
wouldn’t trust him too far.” 

“ Indeed! And who are those people? ” 

“ Now see here, Nancy. I’m only telling you this 
for your own good. I don’t want to see you throw 
yourself away on an undesirable. A pretty girl like 

you,—with plenty of brains-” 

“ Can do better than fall in love with Bill Buell,” 
Nancy finished. “ Oh, Cora, my dear, you’re a per¬ 
fect scream! You don’t know how funny you are! ” 
A flush stained Mrs, Madison’s cheeks as she stood 
up. “ I may be funny, but I’m not a fool,” she said. 
“ This running after strange men-” 




THE ARREST OF LUNT 217 

“ Like the one at the Newbridge station/’ jeered 
Nancy. 

“ Very well, my dear. But remember, it’s easy to 
get into trouble-” 

“ I suppose you know. There, there, Cora, I didn’t 
mean to be disagreeable. I have got a horrid tongue.” 

The respectable woman marched down the stairs, 
biting her lips, unconscious of the fact that twice that 
afternoon she had made serious mistakes. 

Nancy lighted a cigarette. She didn’t like Cora 
Madison; she didn’t like the things she had said about 
William Buell. And presently Nancy went into her 
room and put on her hat. She felt that the circum¬ 
stances called for action on her part. 

Fairview Street was quiet when she stopped at the 
house in which her friend roomed. Ringing the bell, 
she asked the girl if Mr. Buell was in; and shortly 
there was the sound of a masculine step on the stairs. 
“ It isn’t often I call on gentlemen,” said Nancy; “ but 
I had something important to tell you. Can you come 
out in the park with me for half an hour? ” 

As they walked to the park, she said: “ Bill, you’ve 
made some enemies in this town. Cora Madison has 
got some grudge against you; and she hinted that there 
are others. I don’t want to see you get into any 
trouble. But Cora’s the sort of woman who can do a 
lot of harm.” 



218 


CROOKED LANES 


“ I’m not afraid of Mrs. Madison, Nancy. I know 
exactly what she’s up to.” 

“ She wants to know who the man was I spoke to 
at the station in Newbridge. And so does that Mr. 
Calvert. He came to see me the other day on purpose 
to find out about that.” 

“ What did he say to you, Nancy? ” 

Seated on a park bench, she told him the incidents 
of Calvert’s call. “ I don’t like him, Bill,” she con¬ 
cluded. “And his attitude, taken with the way Cora 
Madison talked this afternoon, made me uneasy about 
you.” 

“ I don’t think I’ve anything to fear from Calvert,” 
said Buell lightly. “ He’s trying to find out what 
became of Sam Lunt; and that’s likely to prove a wild 
goose chase.” 

Nancy turned her head. “What has become of 
him, Bill? I believe you know, in spite of all your 
pretending.” 

Buell, seeking for an appropriate answer, caught 
sight of a newsboy coming along the path. The boy, 
noticing his glance, stopped and presented a paper. 

Buell dropped a couple of pennies into the boy’s 
hand. “ I have my own ideas on that subject,” he 

said. “ But-” He broke off abruptly. “ What’s 

this? What’s this?” He pointed to a headline in 
the newspaper. 



THE ARREST OF LUNT 


219 


Nancy looked over his shoulder. 

“ ‘ Samuel Lunt,’ ” read Buell, “ 4 formerly a bank 
employee in Westminster, has been taken into custody 
in New York, charged with complicity in the murder 
of John Caradine, the celebrated explorer. Mr. Cara- 
dine was found shot in his house on the night of June 
third. The New York police authorities refuse to 
make public the evidence on which Lunt is held.’ ” 

'‘Sam Lunt!” gasped Nancy. “Why, that’s im¬ 
possible ! ” 

“ That’s what it says, however,” observed Buell 
drily. 

Nancy stared at the newspaper, then at her com¬ 
panion. 

“ Sam might possibly know something about it,” she 
argued; “ but they certainly can’t prove that he 
actually had a hand in shooting Mr. Caradine! ” 

“ What I don’t understand,” said Buell, “ is how 
they ever managed to find him. It seems as if there 
must be some mistake.” 

“ So you did know something about him, Bill! You 
did! You did! ” accused Nancy. 

“ It’s Calvert’s doing, of course.” 

“ I hate that man! ” cried Nancy. “ I ought never 
to have shown him Sam’s picture.” 

Buell smiled. “ You showed him Sam’s picture, did 
you? No, Nancy, you oughtn’t to hate him. He’s 


220 


CROOKED LANES 


doing his duty, as he sees it. But this does make a 
difference in my plans.” 

“ You’ll look after Sam’s interests? ” 

“ Yes,” he nodded. He thought for a moment. “ I 
appreciate your kindness, Nancy, in coming to tell me 
what Mrs. Madison said. You can put her threats 
against me right out of your mind. But this news of 
Sam’s arrest means that I must get busy. Do you 
mind if I run away? ” 

“ Go to it, Bill! I hope sometime you’ll tell me 
what all this mystery is about.” 

Thereupon Buell went one way, and Nancy another. 

In a telephone booth at a drug-store Buell called up 
the Peacock Inn, and getting Mrs. Eddy, asked to speak 
to Calvert. He was informed that the man he wanted 
was probably at Sherwood. There he got Calvert. 

“ I’ve seen the news about Lunt’s arrest in the 
paper,” said Buell; “ and now I must see you.” 

“ All right,” answered Calvert. “ Will you come 
out here ? ” 

“ By the next trolley.” 

So it happened that, as the late afternoon sun was 
lighting beacons in the window-panes of Sherwood, 
Buell walked up the drive and rang the bell. 

Calvert was waiting for him, and immediately 
opened the door. “ Come in,” he said. “ Mrs. Welsh 
needed my room at the inn, and so I moved over here. 


THE ARREST OF LUNT 


221 


We can talk without being interrupted in the study. 
I’ve sent Grant on an errand that’ll keep him for some 
time.” 

Buell’s eyes quizzed those of the other man. 

But Calvert’s expression was absolutely guileless. 
With a smile he waved his guest toward the study 
door. 


XVII 


THE TWO DETECTIVES 

“So they’ve captured Lunt?” said Buell, seating 
himself in a chair, chosen so that the afternoon sun 
should shine into Calvert’s face rather than into his 
own. 

“ I understand that they have,” agreed Calvert. 
“ Of couse I haven’t seen the man myself.” 

“ The arrest doesn’t interfere with my plans,” said 
Buell. “ They are all ripe for action. But just what 
do you expect from the arrest of Lunt? ” 

Calvert made a little gesture with his hands. “ Sev¬ 
eral results. The most interesting from my viewpoint 
is the solution of the Caradine case. That was the 
most extraordinary affair, Buell; quite unique in my 
experience.” 

“ You expect to solve that, do you? ” 

“ The pieces are all ready to fall into their proper 
places.” 

“ And what made you decide that Lunt was the 
criminal?” 

“ Well, quite a number of things. I came to the 


THE TWO DETECTIVES 


223 


Peacock Inn originally so that I might track several 
people suspected of criminal intentions. I’d hardly 
more than got there when this Caradine crime oc¬ 
curred. For various reasons I suspected that some of 
the gang I was to- watch were probably concerned in 
it. They are—I might say incidentally—very respect¬ 
able-appearing people. Now Samuel Lunt was a most 
respectable bank clerk, a man of excellent record, and 
he had left town—or at least had told his landlady 
and the bank that he was leaving town—on the after¬ 
noon of June third. More than a month had passed, 
and he had neither returned nor written to Mrs. Os¬ 
trander nor the bank as to his plans. There was three 
weeks’ salary due him at the bank, but he hadn’t ap¬ 
plied for it. The telegram he had received was signed 
* Joseph,’ and sent from the Murray Hotel in New 
York; but on investigation at that hotel nothing was 
known of the sender nor of Samuel Lunt. 

“ Samuel Lunt had vanished on the afternoon of 
June third. He had apparently been interested in 
books on Brazil, a country with which John Caradine 
was well known to be familiar. Lunt had left his 
house wearing a suit that was not the one that Mrs, 
Ostrander said he had worn all spring. Presumably 
he had carried a hand-bag with him; Mrs, Ostrander 
would have expected him to be carrying a hand-bag 
if she had happened to see him leaving the house. 


224 


CROOKED LANES 


Well, I found such a hand-bag hidden in the bushes 
at the side of the drive here at Sherwood. 

“ But I had sufficient reason to suspect Lunt before 
I found that hand-bag. From the study of certain 
photographs and from talks with Joshua Mason and 
Nancy Hackett I had established the fact that there 
was a remarkably close facial resemblance between 
Lunt and John Caradine. My conclusion was that— 
as you yourself put it to Roger Blythe—Lunt had 
planned to try his hand at being some one else.” 

“ That is certainly conceivable,” acknowledged 
Buell, nodding his head. 

“ I thought you would think so,” smiled Calvert. 
“ Now we come to something else that’s interesting. 
You know that it’s usually the detail we don’t under¬ 
stand that is most important in forging a chain of 
evidence. I didn’t understand why Caradine had so 
pointedly sent his servant away early in the evening 
of June third. Odin Welsh had telephoned the day 
before to ask if Caradine would see him here that 
night, and Caradine had good reason to think that 
Welsh wasn’t particularly friendly. Why then did he 
tell Grant to be off on a holiday, practically send him 
off at once? The answer is: he didn’t.” 

“ I understood that Grant said he did.” 

“ Grant did say that. But Grant’s eyesight is not 
of the best, he was in the garage and the man who 


THE TWO DETECTIVES 


225 


spoke to him was outside, quite a little distance away. 
Grant naturally thought the man was John Caradine; 
there was nothing to make him suspicious. The man 
actually was Lunt.” 

“ Well, I take off my hat to you,” said Buell. 
“ That’s a nice bit of reasoning.” 

“ A compliment from you is a compliment indeed,” 
said Calvert with a bow. “ Eunt had made a careful 
study of the situation. He knew all about Caradine’s 
household, and he knew all about the geography of 
Sherwood. He had located a pond and a boat that 
would help him to dispose of his victim’s body. 
Everything was perfectly simple for an accomplished 
criminal. With Grant out of the way, all he had to do 
was to go in, dispose of Caradine, take the man’s place 
long enough to get his hands on his capital, and be off, 
presumably to Brazil, in reality to wherever he wanted. 
No one would suspect anything.” 

“ And doubtless you have a logical explanation of 
why he didn’t complete his plan,” Buell said in a tone 
that was half-way between a question and an asser¬ 
tion. “ For even if he meant to take the place of 
Caradine, admittedly he didn’t complete it.” 

“ Perfectly logical.” Calvert’s expression showed 
how much he was enjoying relating his discoveries to 
a fellow artist in the unraveling of crime. “ The rea¬ 
son is that the man who located the pond and the 


226 


CROOKED DANES 


boat and sent Grant away was not the man who 
fired the fatal shot in this room. Two shots were 
fired, you remember. One smashed that window- 
pane.” 

Buell wrinkled his brow. “ I don’t exactly get that.” 

“ Well, I wouldn’t expect you to get it offhand,” 
said Calvert cheerily. “ It’s taken me a lot of study. 
I came upon it from the other end, as we often have 
to in these cases. A man who had picked up Cara- 
dine’s cap and light overcoat left this house before 
Blythe and I got here, and took the trolley to the 
Newbridge railroad station. My deduction is that it 
was the presence of that man here that prevented the 
first criminal from completing his plans.” 

“ The first criminal? Why do you say that? ” 

“ Because the man in the cap was the second crim¬ 
inal. The first one came here with criminal intent; 
but it was the second man who fired the fatal shot. 
And that upset the first one’s plans.” 

“ Lunt’s plans, you mean? ” 

Calvert shrugged. “ Names are so frequently mis¬ 
leading when you’re dealing with people who use so 
many aliases. The man the police have captured un¬ 
der the name of Eunt is, I presume, the man who 
went from here to the Newbridge station; in other 
words, the real criminal.” 

‘‘That’s what you think, is it? Well, I must say, 


THE TWO DETECTIVES 227 

Calvert, that I believe you’re going to be surprised. 
That second man doesn’t convince me.” 

“No?” Calvert’s tone was perfectly good-hu¬ 
mored. “ What’s your own explanation ? ” 

“ What’s become of the first man? ” Buell retorted. 
“ The one we’ve been calling Lunt? ” 

“ You want me to account for both of them? Isn’t 
it enough if I find the actual criminal? ” 

“ But suppose the man they’ve arrested is inno¬ 
cent?” 

Calvert rose. From his pocketbook he took the 
newspaper picture that he had shown Joshua Mason 
and Nancy Hackett, and handed it to Buell. “ There,” 
he said. “ A man who looked like that came here on 
the night of June third, sent Grant away, and walked 
into this room, pistol in pocket. Two shots were fired. 
And then, a little later, a man looking like that left 
here and went to Newbridge. The first man didn’t 
carry out his plan. I ask you, why? ” 

Buell looked from the picture to Calvert. 

“ You get my meaning? ” said Calvert. “ Remark¬ 
able affair, isn’t it? No, I don’t think the man they’ve 
arrested, whoever he proves to be, is innocent.” 

Buell returned the picture. “ How did you work 
that out ? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know exactly. I suppose I might call 
it inspiration. I was chewing hard on the problem 


228 


CROOKED LANES 


when I happened to look up at that portrait on the wall 
of John Caradine’s father. Something about the 
mouth and eyes caught my attention. That gave me 
the idea.” 

Buell stared at the portrait for several minutes. 
“ Inspiration—sudden decision—is hard to understand 
sometimes,” he said. 

“ Very,” agreed Calvert. “ Often it’s quite unac¬ 
countable.” 

Another short pause, and then Buell stood up. 
“ You have all the pieces in your hand? And now 
that Lunt is arrested, you’re ready to fit them to¬ 
gether and show the result to the public? ” 

“ To-morrow, I think,” agreed Calvert, 

“ I can make my plans accord.” 

“ I’m glad to hear that. I hope, Buell, that you 
understand my position.” 

Buell nodded. “ Of course. My congratulations, 
Calvert. You may call it an inspiration, but such 
things only come to those who are looking hard for 
them.” 

They went out to the front steps, and Buell started 
down the drive. Calvert watched him for a few min¬ 
utes, and then, without any other purpose than to en¬ 
joy the fresh air, he strolled after him. 

Buell walked straight ahead until he had nearly 
reached the gate-posts on to the highroad. Then Cal- 


THE TWO DETECTIVES 220 

vert saw him stop, and the next instant he had turned 
and disappeared in the bushes. 

“ Looking for that pond, is he ? ” muttered Calvert, 
stepping softly. 

Two people came into view, just entering the drive¬ 
way; Lilian Welsh and Roger Blythe. “Hello, Cal¬ 
vert ! ” sang out Blythe. “ I thought I saw a man 
jump into the woods over there,” and he pointed to 
where Buell had hidden. 

“ Oh, no,” laughed Calvert. “ I don’t think you 
could have.” 

“ That’s odd,” said Blythe. “ I certainly did see a 
man duck into the bushes there. And he looked to me 
like William Buell.” 

“ Well, if you did ”—Calvert spoke in his lightest 
tone—“ remember that Buell is a detective, and there¬ 
fore allowed certain privileges, such as making him¬ 
self invisible whenever he sees fit. No, I wouldn’t 
hunt for him in the bushes. Were you coming in to 
give me the pleasure of a call? ” 

“ The afternoon paper says that Samuel Lunt has 
been captured in New York,” Blythe declared. “ Mrs. 
Welsh and I were appointed a committee of two from 
the inn to find out what you thought about it.” 

Calvert looked down at his white buckskin shoe, he 
glanced at the shrubs along the roadway. “ Ask me 
to-morrow,” he said, “ and I think I can give you a 


£30 


CROOKED LANES 


satisfactory answer. And, by the way, Blythe, if you’ll 
be at the inn to-night at half-past eight o’clock, I’d like 
to see you on a matter of business. Meantime let me 
walk back with you. There’s going to be a particularly 
brilliant sunset.” 

They turned with him into the highroad, and Calvert 
chatted on in his usual sprightly fashion. But the lit¬ 
tle incident he had just witnessed had infinite relish 
for him; he was chuckling to himself over the pre¬ 
dicament of the detective in the bushes. 


XVIII 


a lawyer’s predicament 

A car, hired at a garage in Westminster, drove over 
the road to Welsh’s house that evening, swung in at 
the gates of Broadlawn, and pulled up at the front 
steps. Two men got out; one spoke to the chauffeur; 
and the car, making the circle of the graveled drive 
at the rear, returned to the highroad and stopped in 
the shadow of a wide-branching maple. 

“ If you need any assistance, Mr. Palfrey,” said 
the man who had spoken to the chauffeur, “ I will be 
right here.” 

“ It’s a simple matter of business, Mr. Buell,” an¬ 
swered the young lawyer. “ I can handle it very well 
by myself.” 

His companion nodded, and lighting a cigar, walked 
away, so that the light from the open door should not 
discover him. 

Palfrey, a fellow of considerable self-assurance, 
pushed the electric button. After a few minutes’ wait 
the door opened, and he stepped in. 

“ I came to see Mr. Welsh.” He offered his card. 
“ It’s on important business.” 


232 


CROOKED LANES 


The card was accepted by the neatly-dressed man 
who had answered the bell. “ Please sit down,” he 
said; and crossed the wide hall to an open door at one 
side. 

Shortly he came back. “ Mr. Welsh will see you in 
the library,” he stated, and indicated the door. 

A decanter of whiskey and a half-emptied glass were 
on a small stand by Odin Welsh’s chair. Welsh looked 
harassed and worried; he was lighting a fresh ciga¬ 
rette from the stub of a smoked one as his caller en¬ 
tered. “ Mr. Palfrey? ” he said, glancing at the card 
lying on the stand. “ What can I do for you ? ” 

The lawyer took a seat, and drew a sheaf of papers 
from his inner pocket. “ Mr. Welsh,” said he, “ I 
represent a committee of stockholders in the West¬ 
minster Mills. We have had an investigation of the 
financial affairs of several of your companies made 
by expert accountants. I have their reports here. I 
have been instructed to point out certain things in 
them to you.” 

Welsh drew himself up; there was a return of his 
old domineering manner. “ Some other time, sir. I 
prefer to discuss business matters at my office.” 

“ My instructions were to see you to-night. Certain 
accounts are overdrawn. There are—to speak plainly, 
sir,—several transactions here that require immediate 
explanation.” 


A LAWYER’S PREDICAMENT 233 

Welsh bit his lip and frowned. “ I haven’t kept in 
touch with all the details of the business these last few 
weeks. I’ve been occupied with other things. If some 
of my people have been careless-” 

“ Some one has been more than careless,” Palfrey 
interrupted. He was a fair-skinned man, and when 
he grew excited, as he was now, his face flushed and 
he looked belligerent. “ This isn’t a case of negli¬ 
gence, Mr. Welsh; it’s a case of criminal conversion. 
There is even evidence of forgery of important docu¬ 
ments.” 

Welsh stretched out his hand. “ Let me see.” 

Palfrey handed over a paper. Welsh sat back in his 
chair and read the typewritten statement. All the 
bluster went out of his face. His fingers automatically 
felt for the glass on the stand, and lifted it to his 
lips. 

“ I can explain any details,” said the lawyer. “ I 
think you will see that, no matter who may be re¬ 
sponsible for what has been going on, the stockholders 
were more than justified in making this investigation.” 

Welsh put the paper down. “ This is news to me,” 
he said. 

“ Some of it may be of recent occurrence,” conceded 
Palfrey; “ but investigation shows that the business 
has not been carried on as it should have been for a 
considerable time past. The opportunity was made, 



234 CROOKED LANES 

the train laid, as it were, for these conversions, these 
thefts in fact.” 

“ Thefts?” 

“Yes, some one has been stealing.” Palfrey pre¬ 
sented another paper. “ Look at that.” 

Again Welsh read, or made a pretense of reading. 
“ I don’t know if all this is true,” he muttered. “ It 
will take time to find out.” 

“It is absolutely true,” was the rejoinder. “We 
have the proof in my office. As to its taking time, 
my clients demand immediate action. It’s the only 
way to save them from further loss.” 

Welsh looked at the lawyer, and his eyes wavered. 
“ What do you want me to do ? ” 

“To give us some security that will protect us until 
this is cleared up. We don’t want to be hard on you, 
Mr. Welsh. A man of your position, with your 
financial affiliations, may be able to find a way out. 
Possibly we can keep it from the newspapers. But 
there must be restitution and reorganization.” 

“If I don’t?” 

“ We must go to court. My clients are determined. 
We are ready to swear out warrants.” 

Welsh placed the second paper on the stand. In¬ 
decision, and something of the furtiveness of the cor¬ 
nered creature reckoning chances of escape by darting 
in different directions, was evident in his expression, 


235 


A LAWYER’S PREDICAMENT 

“ I will have to see my lawyer, Mr. Joshua Mason,” 
he temporized. 

“ Perhaps you could get him at his house now,” 
Palfrey suggested, glancing at the telephone on the 
large flat-topped mahogany desk at the right of the 
library. 

\ 

Welsh considered this, and then, after a moment, 
went over toward the desk. But as he reached for the 
telephone there came an interruption. 

Some one in the hall, some one who was hidden 
from Palfrey, who sat with his back to the door, said: 
“Excuse me, Mr. Welsh; but there’s a lady to see 
vou.” 

The owner of Broadlawn turned. He was, one 
might have imagined, glad of the interruption. “ A 
lady? ” And with an abrupt, apologetic nod at Pal¬ 
frey, he walked quickly out of the room. 

The door had been open, and he did not stop to 
close it. Palfrey heard the soft, half-laughing accents 
of a woman’s voice. 

The lawyer remained seated a moment, but then 
curiosity overcame him. He knew the gossip about 
Welsh’s private life, and he was interested. Rising, 
he picked up the two papers from the stand that held 
the decanter, and made a half-circle toward the door. 
He saw a tall, slender woman, with lovely golden hair, 
a rose-colored cloak hanging from her slim shoulders, 


280 CROOKED LANES 

whispering to Welsh, who held her two hands in 
his. 

The woman was urging something. 

Palfrey stood fascinated. The play of expression 
on the face upturned to Welsh’s, the yielding slant of 
the slender figure, the soft, seducing murmur, would 
have held any observer. Welsh’s face was hidden, but 
now his hand had stolen along the arm from which the 
cloak fell away. 

The woman smiled. Her red lips parted and pouted. 
Welsh’s arm was about her. Close together, they 
moved across the hall toward the front door. 

On a table was a gray felt hat. The woman swept 
this up as they passed it. Now they were hidden from 
the man in the library. 

Palfrey stood still, fascinated. 

There came from directly behind him a low voice. 
“If you turn, or call out, I’ll shoot you.” 

He felt something pressing into his back. 

“ Put your hands behind you.” 

Without hesitation, Palfrey obeyed. 

His hands were caught, wrenched together, and 
something of metal was snapped about his two wrists. 

“ Open your mouth, but don’t make a sound.” 

Again he felt the pressure of something, this time 
in his side. 

The next thing he knew a gag was in his mouth. 


A LAWYER’S PREDICAMENT 237 

and something had been knotted behind his head. 
Then a bandage was drawn over his eyes and tied. 

“ Very good,” whispered the voice. “ Now I’ll lead 
you to a chair.” 

Palfrey was pushed into a seat, his manacled hands 
rubbing against the back. 

He could see nothing, but he heard soft footsteps 
going about the room. Soon he caught a sound that 
was like the filing of metal. Then there were foot¬ 
falls again. Something was being done on the side of 
the library opposite the desk. 

Five minutes might have passed; and there was a 
soft tiptoeing out of the room. 

Palfrey shifted in his chair. His wrists and arms 
were beginning to ache abominably; he tried to move 
his jaws. How long would he have to stay here? 
What further villainy might be expected ? 

And then there came a shattering sound from some¬ 
where in the house; the ringing of broken glass. He 
heard voices and footsteps; they must be in the hall. 
He edged forward in the chair; he wondered if he 
dared to stand up. . . . 

“ What’s this?” cried some one. “ Who’s that?” 

“ It’s Palfrey, the lawyer,” came to him in the voice 
of Buell. 

Then hands were fumbling at the back of his head. 
The cords that held the gag in his mouth were 


238 


CROOKED LANES 


loosened, the gag fell out. The bandage was whipped 
away from over his eyes. 

He saw five men in the room, two of whom he 
knew; Buell and Police Lieutenant Erdman. “ Where 
is that devil ? ” he cried. “ Don’t let him get away! ” 

“ Who tied you up? ” asked Buell. 

“ I don’t know. I was watching Welsh and a 
woman out in the hall; they were going toward the 
front door. Some one stole up behind me with a pis¬ 
tol, and handcuffed, blinded and gagged me.” Palfrey 
looked around him. “ The man must have come in 
by that door beyond the desk.” 

“A woman and Welsh?” asked a pink-cheeked 
man. 

Lieutenant Erdman interrupted. “ Your orders, 
Mr. Calvert, were not to interfere with Mr. Welsh 
leaving the house. A woman did drive up in a car, 
and she came in for a few minutes. Mr. Welsh went 
out with her and they drove away.” 

Calvert shrugged. “ All right. The devil won out. 
Now find the other man.” 

“ He can’t have got away from the house,” said the 
lieutenant. “ Pve had men watching every side.” 

“ After he put me in that chair,” said Palfrey, “ he 
did something in this room. It sounded as if he was 
using a file on something, over there by the desk.” 

Calvert went to the desk. He pulled open the single 


A LAWYER’S PREDICAMENT 


239 


middle drawer, stooped over it, shut it again. He 
jerked out the top drawer on the right side, bent, 
looked at the fastening. “ Yes, he filed this lock. 
Regular burglar's job. What did he do then? " 

“ I thought he went to the other side of the room," 
said Palfrey. “ He was there several minutes." 

Again Calvert followed the suggestion. He crossed 
to the wall, looked along the paneling, and pointed 
out a small keyhole. From his pocket he took a bunch 
of keys, and tried one in the keyhole. 

“ He locked it again after he’d taken what he 
wanted. No use our breaking in there now. Welsh 
has gone with the woman, and the faithful secretary 
has taken his master’s valuables." 

“ We’ll get him,’’ declared Lieutenant Erdman. 
“ My men would have nabbed him if he’d tried to 
leave the house. There’s been nobody out of here 
except Welsh since the servant Joseph Carey left at 
eight o’clock; and I’ve got a man watching Carey’s 
house now." 

“ I was out on the walk," put in Buell. “ I saw 
Welsh drive away with the woman, but I wasn’t go¬ 
ing to stop them. I expected Palfrey to come out, and 
waited for him. But he didn’t, and after a few min¬ 
utes all the lights went out on the ground floor. I 
tried the front door, but it was locked. And then you, 
Calvert, drove up in your car with Blythe, and we 


240 


CROOKED LANES 


broke in the glass door from the terrace. The man 
must be here somewhere.” 

“ Very well,” said Calvert, drawing a revolver from 
his pocket. “ But look out for yourselves.” 

“Can’t some one get these handcuffs off?” be¬ 
sought Palfrey. “ They’re damned uncomfortable.” 

Erdman chuckled. He took out a huge knife, with 
a varied assortment of blades. A skilful manipulation 
of the manacles, and the lawyer’s hands were free. 

Cautiously the lieutenant and his fellow officer 
searched Broadlawn from cellar to attic. They could 
find no one in the house. They returned to the hall 
and reported to Calvert. 

“ All right,” said that man. “ You will keep your 
cordon about the house. And meantime, since he may 
not be here in spite of your excellent precautions, I 
will look for him elsewhere. Mr. Palfrey has had 
enough excitement for one evening; but I’d be glad of 
the company of Blythe and Buell in my little car.” 

An extraordinarily agile man sat on the bough of a 
maple opposite a second-story window of Welsh’s 
house. He heard men come out at the front door, and 
then a car chug away. Presently he slid down the 
trunk of the maple, ducked to the shadow of a lilac 
bush, and from there slipped into the well of a sunken 
garden. The garden terminated in a walk bordered 


A LAWYER’S PREDICAMENT 


241 


on each side by a hedge of yew. He traversed this, 
invisible above the hedges, and came to a thick-set 
screen of poplars on the outer boundary. Weaving in 
and out of the screen, he reached an opening to the 
back road, and there, in the shadow of a wide syringa 
bush he found a small, low-hung car. Into the seat 
he climbed, started the engine, and was off with a rush. 
Bushes were torn away as the car bounded out on the 
highroad. 

The man crouched so low that the back of the seat 
almost concealed him. There was a shout behind him, 
then the crack of a pistol. 

But, driving like the wind, the man whirled around 
the next corner on two wheels, and was lost in the 
shadows of a tree-lined lane. 


XIX 


THE RESULT OF A CALL 

At about the same time in the afternoon of that his¬ 
toric day that William Buell was ducking into the rho¬ 
dodendron bushes at Sherwood a man and a maid were 
loitering along a country road in the neighborhood of 
Northfield. The maiden had chestnut brown hair, 
that in certain lights had tints of autumn leaves, and 
she looked extremely trim and cool in her small dark- 
blue straw hat, her pale yellow sweater, white linen 
skirt, white stockings and shoes. The man was lean 
and tall, with reddish hair and a drooping mustache. 
He carried a bamboo walking-stick, with which he oc¬ 
casionally swished at the high grass by the roadside. 

“ Ellen,” said Frank Prestwick; for the man was 
none other; “ I’ve talked a lot to you about my doings 
in England and that sort of thing; but I’m dashed if 
you’ve told me anything at all about yourself.” 

“ Fve little to relate,” said Ellen Massey. “ My 
parents dwell in a small, but very respectable, town in 
Connecticut, from which I emigrated several years ago 
to make my living in New York.” 


243 


THE RESULT OE A CALL 

“ To make your living! I say, you’ve got ambition! 
And how do you go about it? ” 

“ By carrying out various commissions for my em¬ 
ployers.” She gave him a mischievous side-glance. 
“ You see, there are many situations that arise that 
require the intervention of a clever and resourceful 
woman; to patch up a family feud; to give advice to 
a wealthy, but foolish, woman who has fallen under 
the influence of a handsome fakir; to prevent a girl, 
bored with society, from eloping with her father’s 
chauffeur. Being unusually sagacious, I am able to 
set such people right.” 

“ My word! but you must be clever! ” 

“ Hadn’t you found that out? ” she asked with in¬ 
nocent eyes. “ And you’ve known me for several 
days!” 

“ Oh, I knew you weren’t the usual sort of girl at 
all. But I say, I never heard of a business like that 
before. What do you call it? ” 

“ The Helping Hand Company, Incorporated,” she 
answered. “ It’s very interesting. It gives one a won¬ 
derful insight into human nature.” 

“ And is Mr. Calvert one of the agents too? ” 

“ He’s one of the directors. He assigns the work 
for those like me to do.” 

“ You know him pretty well, don’t you, Ellen? ” 

“ Oh, yes. Naturally, working together.” 


244 


CROOKED LANES 


“ I’ve wondered-” 

But before he could tell what he wondered Ellen 
stopped and looked across a plowed field at a farm¬ 
house, fronting on a crossroad. A woman had come 
out from a side door and stood there, apparently speak¬ 
ing to some one within. 

“ Who is that woman, Frank? ” 

“ Really I haven’t the least notion.” 

“ Use your eyes, please.” 

“ Might be anybody, so far as I can tell.” 

The woman went down the path to the cross-lane. 

“ I thought so,” said Ellen. “ That’s your friend 
Miss Granby.” 

“ I say, you have good eyesight! What’s my uncle’s 
housekeeper doing there? ” 

“ Perhaps if you hurry you might overtake her and 
ask her. You’d have to hurry, though; she’s going the 
other way.” 

“ Oh, I’d feel like a fool! ” Prestwick protested. 
“ Maybe she’s been buying eggs. Suppose she told me 
that?” 

“ Nevertheless I would like to know what she was 
doing,” said Ellen. 

Prestwick smoothed his mustache. “We might go 
over to the farmhouse and ask for a glass of water, and 
then, while we were chatting I could slip in a leading 
question concerning Miss Granby.” 



245 


THE RESULT OF A CALL 

Ellen looked up in his face. “ I’m afraid your lead¬ 
ing question would give the whole game away.” 

“ But what is the game? Are we sleuthing Uncle 
Charles’s housekeeper? ” 

“ Never mind.” Ellen glanced at the farmhouse 
and its neighboring country. “ There’s a big barn 
with a gilded rooster weather-vane; and there’s a giant 
oak in that field. And there—over in the distance—is 
what looks like a gipsy encampment. This must be 
half a mile from your uncle’s house. I guess I can 
remember it.” 

“ I’ll help you. Though I don’t get the point.” 

“ All right. And now we’d better speed up if we 
don’t want to be late to our suppers.” 

He loped along at her side. “ I was saying, that 
fellow Calvert-” 

“ One of the rules of our company is that we mustn’t 
discuss the directors,” she adjured him sweetly. “ Of 
course you may tell me what you think, but I oughtn’t 
to answer.” 

That, however, was not at all what Frank Prest¬ 
wick wanted; so, seeing that she was obdurate, he 
perforce switched to another topic, his admiration for 
independent, self-supporting American girls, a topic 
that lasted until they reached the town. 

At the picket gate of Jonathan Trimble’s house—■ 
Mrs. Trimble sometimes rented her east bedroom to a 




246 


CROOKED LANES 


paying guest in summer—the couple adjourned their 
afternoon meeting. It was tacitly understood that 
Frank Prestwick would stroll over from the hotel later 
and watch the fireflies from the Trimble porch in the 
company of Ellen. She felt secure as to that; but, 
being a thoroughgoing young woman, she pulled a 
pink rose from the trellis over the gate and fixed it in 
his buttonhole. 

“ Thanks ever so much, Ellen. I say, you 
know --” 

“ Keep it till later/’ she said. “ You’ll miss your 
supper.” 

He watched her go up the path, and then swung 
around. “ Beastly habit they have in these country 
hotels,” he muttered; “ eating their evening meal when 
the birdies go to bed.” 

He was sufficient of a Briton, however, not to allow 
himself to be hurried, no matter what the custom of 
the country; and he made a lengthy toilet in his room 
before he descended to the dining-room of the North- 
field House. 

At the door of the dining-room Mrs. Jordan, the 
wife of the proprietor, handed him a small envelope. 

“ A boy from Simmons’ drug-store in Newbridge 
left this for you a little while ago, Mr. Prestwick,” 
she explained. 

He took the envelope with him to the table and 



247 


THE RESULT OF A CALL 

while he waited for his first course ripped open the 
flap and unfolded the enclosure. 

“ ‘ That position is open for you/ ” he read; “ ‘ but 
you ought to apply for it immediately. C. M.’ ” 

“ I don’t get the point of that,” he murmured, as 
the waitress arranged a flotilla of small white china 
dishes in the vicinity of his plate. 

“ Beg your pardon? ” said the girl. 

“ Thinking aloud,” he smiled. He picked up the 
envelope. It bore his name right enough,—Mr. Prest¬ 
wick ; but some one had run a pencil through the pre¬ 
ceding words, which he made out to be “ Miss Granby; 
in care of.” 

As he ate, he pondered the puzzle of the note. The 
Mr. Prestwick, he presumed, must mean his Uncle 
Charles. But surely his uncle wasn’t looking for any 
position. The note must have been intended to reach 
the housekeeper, whose name it had originally borne. 
She might be looking for another position. Yes, 
clearly it was meant for her. Some one had made a 
mistake in penciling out her name. And, satisfied with 
this conclusion, he put the note in his pocket. 

Thinking it over during supper, he felt that this 
message gave him a good opportunity to call again at 
his uncle’s house. He had an excuse in giving the note 
to its rightful owner. Possibly if Miss Granby was 
planning to leave immediately, he might be of service 


248 


CROOKED LANES 


to his uncle. And he wanted to see his Uncle Charles; 
he was getting very tired of inaction; he felt in the 
mood to force himself into the house and demand an 
audience. 

By the time he had finished supper he was quite 
determined. It was ridiculous that a man, even though 
an invalid, should be so cranky as to refuse to see his 
own kin. Frank Prestwick wasn't going to allow him¬ 
self to be treated in such a cavalier fashion any longer. 

Then he remembered Ellen Massey, and his own an¬ 
ticipation of spending several agreeable hours with her 
on the Trimbles’ porch. Well, he would see his uncle 
first, and then call on Ellen. He went to the telephone 
and called up the Trimbles’ house. Mrs. Trimble an¬ 
swered, and he asked to speak to Miss Massey. 

“ She’s gone down to the post-office,” said Mrs. 
Trimble. “ She told me she’d be back in a few min¬ 
utes. Can I take a message ? ” 

“ Please tell her that Mr. Prestwick will be over 
about nine o’clock.” And he added impulsively: “ I’d 
expected to come over sooner; but I’m called away for 
a time on rather important business.” 

He hung up, and went for his hat and stick. As 
he passed the hotel desk Mrs. Jordan, who was inter¬ 
ested in Ellen Massey and also in Frank Prestwick, 
said: “ It’s a beautiful evening. Are you going for a 
walk ? ” 


249 


THE RESULT OF A CALL 

He stopped. “ I’m going to do a desperate deed, 
madam. Don’t I look a heroic figure? ” And, twist¬ 
ing his mustache, he twirled his walking-stick. “ I’m 
going to confront the dragon. St. George for Eng¬ 
land ! It’s quite in the part, isn’t it ? ” 

“ Be careful the dragon doesn’t hurt you,” laughed 
the proprietress. “ I thought perhaps you were going 
to call on a young lady.” 

“ The young lady comes after the dragon,” he re¬ 
turned lightly. “ Reward for valor, you know.” 

With his stick under his arm, he left the hotel office, 
and took the road that led to his uncle’s house. 

It was a walk of some distance, and while he was 
swinging along several interesting things were hap¬ 
pening. Ellen came back from the post-office, and 
Mrs. Trimble gave her the message. That made Ellen 
very thoughtful. She stood on the porch a short while, 
considering some problem. Then she went to the 
hotel and sought out her friend Mrs. Jordan. 

Very frankly she said: “I want to see Mr. Prest¬ 
wick.” 

“ He’s gone out—on some desperate deed, Miss 
Massey. He said something about confronting a 
dragon.” 

“ Tell me just exactly what he did say, please.” 

Mrs. Jordan related what she remembered. 

Ellen went to the telephone and called up Sherwood. 


250 


CROOKED LANES 


Grant, who responded, answered her question by say¬ 
ing that Mr. Calvert was out. 

The situation, so it seemed to Ellen, called for action 
on her own initiative. 

Meanwhile Frank Prestwick had reached the semi¬ 
circular drive that looped his uncle’s house to the high¬ 
road. It was not late;—there was still a soft saffron 
glow way down in the western sky;—but there was no 
illumination in the house. The thought occurred to 
him that possibly Miss Granby was out, and that, in 
that case, he might more readily insist on seeing his 
uncle. 

He went to the front door and tried it, having some 
idea of walking boldly in, if the door were unlocked. 
It was fastened, however; and after a short reflection 
he made a sort of tour of orientation of the outside of 
the house, looking in at the lower windows, some of 
which were curtained, and none of which gave him 
any glimpse of a light or an occupant of the ground 
floor. 

At the back, where the woods came up close, so 
close in fact that there was only a narrow path be¬ 
tween the mansion and the forest, he encountered an¬ 
other door, the handle of which he turned, to find it 
also locked. Looking up, he saw that one of the 
windows on the second story was open. There was, 
however, no light in that room either. 


V 


THE RESULT OF A CALL 


251 


Again at the front door, he decided to ring the bell. 
He did so several times; but there was no answer from 
within. Perplexed, and on a rising tide of indigna¬ 
tion,—for, so he argued, if his uncle was an invalid, it 
was criminal to leave him there unattended,—he went 
around to the rear of the house. 

“ Uncle Charles! Hello, Mr. Prestwick! ” he called 
up to the open window. 

Silence answered his call. 

He opened his mouth again. 

From behind him something struck him on the head. 
He saw stars, he threw up his arms; then he toppled 
in a heap on the path at the edge of the woods. 


XX 


THE EMPTY NEST 

The little car stopped in the road outside Mr. Prest¬ 
wick’s, and Calvert, Blythe and Buell got out. Ad¬ 
vancing into the shelter of trees before the door, Cal¬ 
vert gave a whistle,—three long low notes, a high short 
one, three long ones again. Almost immediately two 
men appeared from the trees along the road. 

“ Any one left the place to-night ? ” asked Calvert. 

“ No, sir,” answered one of the men. “ Two people, 
a man and then a woman, went in some time ago; but 
nobody has come out. The automobile is still in the 
garage.” 

“ That’s all right then. There doesn’t seem to be 
any light in the house.” 

“ There hasn’t been all evening.” 

“ But Miss Granby and Saxe are there? ” said Cal¬ 
vert. “ You’ve kept your eyes on them? ” 

“ They were both there at six o’clock. Miss Granby 
came back from a walk; she’d been over to a farm¬ 
house. Saxe has been here all day; he came out from 
the garage and went into the house a few minutes 
before she returned.” 


THE EMPTY NEST 


253 


Calvert walked up to the front door. “ One of you 
go to the corner and watch the back, ,, he said. “ If 
any one starts to run, fire over his head.” 

He rang the bell, and waited. Behind him Buell and 
Blythe looked along the front of the house for any 
illumination. 

Again he rang and again. Then he rapped on the 
door with his knuckles, and presently gave the heavy 
wood a resounding kick. 

“ I guess we’ll have to break in a window,” he mut¬ 
tered. 

“ Wait a minute,” cautioned Buell. 

There was a sound inside. Some one was drawing 
back a bolt; a key creaked in a lock. 

Calvert stood away from the door, his fingers on 
the revolver in his pocket. 

The door slowly opened, and Calvert, with his left 
hand, flashed an electric torch. It caught the figure 
of a man, Charles Prestwick, and immediately he 
threw up his arm as if to ward off a blow. 

“ We’re friends, Mr. Prestwick,” said Calvert. 
“ Roger, you and Buell come in with me. The others 
keep guard outside.” 

The three went into the hall, while Charles Prest¬ 
wick stared at them uncomprehendingly. 

“ Where are Miss Granby and Saxe? ” Calvert de¬ 
manded. 


254 


CROOKED LANES 


The owner of the house shook his head. “ I don’t 
know,” he murmured. “ I haven’t seen her since she 
brought my supper to my room.” 

“ They must be somewhere in the house. I’ve had 
men watching the outside.” 

“ I don’t know. I heard your ringing and knock¬ 
ing; that’s why I came down from my room.” 

“ You’ve been in your room all evening? ” 

Prestwick nodded. “ I was waiting for her to take 
my supper away before I went to bed.” 

“ She always does that ? But she didn’t to-night ? ” 
Prestwick’s fingers gripped Calvert’s forearm. 
“You say you’re friends of mine.” His voice was 
hardly more than a whisper. “ If you are, get me 
out of this house! I’m afraid of them. They told 
me they’d protect me from enemies; but now I jump 
when I hear a step in the hall. Let me go away with 
you before they come back! ” 

“ They shan’t hurt you,” said Calvert, soothingly. 
“ That’s why I came here. You need have nothing 
more to do with them. But I, and my men, must. 
And we must find them, first of all. Buell, you have 
a revolver? ” 

Buell answered by a nod. 

“ Do you want to go over the house with me? ” 

“ As you say,” said the other man. 

“ Roger,”—Calvert turned to Blythe,—“ you stay 


THE EMPTY NEST 


255 


here in the hall with Mr. Prestwick. If you need help, 
there’s one of my men outside the door. I’ll leave the 
door open, and then you won’t need a light. Now, 
Mr. Prestwick, sit down. Roger Blythe is your 
friend.” And with quieting words Calvert led Prest¬ 
wick to a chair. 

Calvert and Buell, with the flash-light, went from 
room to room, ready for any surprise. None of the 
doors were locked, and each room, as they entered it, 
was empty. They found Charles Prestwick’s bedroom, 
then that of Miss Granby, then Joseph Saxe’s; but 
there were no occupants. They explored the upper 
floor, the main floor, and the cellar. As they left each 
room they turned on the electric lights, until the whole 
house was ablaze. And presently they came back to 
the hall, and Calvert called the two men who were 
stationed outside. 

“ There’s not a soul in the house,” he said. “ I’ve 
combed it from top to bottom.” 

“ No one has left since Miss Granby came in at six 
o’clock,” repeated the man who had first given that in¬ 
formation. “ The automobile is still in the garage. I 
looked through the window.” 

“ But they’re not here now,” objected Calvert. 
“ How do you account for that? ” 

“ We’ve had our eye on the house every minute all 
evening. I was in the trees at the west end of the 


256 


CROOKED LANES 


drive, where I could watch the door and all the front 
windows; and Perkins was hidden at the east end, to 
watch the kitchen door and the garage. No one could 
have gotten out to the road without our seeing 
them.” 

“ That’s so, Mr. Calvert,” said Perkins. “ My or¬ 
ders were to watch the garage particularly, in case 
they should try to make a quick get-away in the 
car.” 

“ H’m,” mused Calvert. “ I did think it likely they 
would use the car. Well, Bishop, what do you call 
it?—witchcraft? ” 

“ We’ve men out on the roads, sir,” said Bishop. 
“ And at the railroad station.” 

Calvert walked to the door at the rear of the hall, 
and, turning the latch, threw* it open. “ Had you con¬ 
sidered this? ” he asked. 

“ There’s just thick woods at the back,” explained 
Bishop, “ and a little path that comes around at the 
two ends of the house.” 

“ Then you didn’t consider the woods? ” 

“ I looked them over, sir. They seemed too thick 
for any one to go through. And I had to watch the 
front.” 

“ Very well,” said Calvert in an icy tone. “If you 
two men haven’t been sleeping, I’ll wager this is the 
way Miss Granby and Saxe left the house.” 


THE EMPTY NEST 


257 


“ But what about the two people who came in 
here? ” asked Perkins, as if to shift the burden of re¬ 
sponsibility by a question. 

“ Did you see them enter the house? ” inquired Cal¬ 
vert. 

44 No. They each rang the front bell, and when no¬ 
body answered they went around to the back.” 

44 And you didn’t see them again? ” 

44 No, sir, they disappeared.” 

Why,” said Charles Prestwick, who had followed 
the discussion attentively, 44 I heard some one calling 
mder my window at the back,—a man’s voice. He 
didn’t call very loud. 4 Uncle Charles ! ’ I thought he 
said. I was sitting on the other side of the room, and 
I was too startled to get up quickly. When I looked 
out of the window I couldn’t see any one.” 

44 So it was your nephew who came here,” said Cal¬ 
vert drilv. 

j 

44 Do you think it was he ? ” exclaimed the old man 
eagerly, getting to his feet. 44 Oh, I should like to see 
Frank! Why didn’t he wait ? ” 

44 1 dare say Joseph Saxe could answer that ques¬ 
tion,” said Calvert. 44 Suppose we try to find out 
where the birds have flown.” 

He went out at the rear door, followed by Buell, 
Bishop and Perkins. Blythe, his hand under Prest¬ 
wick’s elbow, helped the old man to complete the 


258 


CROOKED LANES 


procession. Calvert turned his flash-light on the path, 
the underbrush, the trees. 

A few paces from the door he stopped and bent 
over the gravel. There were distinct marks, as if 
something had been drawn across it. 

With a quick step he turned to the bushes, and 
thrust his torch into them. Next minute he was on 
his knees; and then, with Buell’s aid, he gently lifted 
the body of Frank Prestwick out on to the path. 

There was a nasty cut on the side of the man’s head, 
but he was already gaining consciousness. 

“ Frank! Is it Frank? ” cried Charles Prestwick. 

“ He’s all right,” said Calvert. “ Perkins, give a 
hand here.” 

The three of them carried Frank Prestwick in and 
laid him on a divan. 

Hot water and a soft towel soon removed the blood, 
and Calvert, with deft fingers, bound an improvised 
bandage around the injured man’s head. In a few 
minutes he was sitting up; in a few more he was talk¬ 
ing. “ Plello, Uncle Charles! ” he said. “ So you’ve 
decided to see me at last ? ” 

“My dear boy!” murmured the uncle. “If you 
knew how I’ve wanted to see you! ” And he clasped 
his nephew’s hand. 

“ That’s all right, sir. That’s all right. I tried to 
get into your house to-night, and when I couldn’t, I 


THE EMPTY NEST 259 

called under a window. Then a ton of bricks struck 
me on the head.” 

“ Joseph Saxe and a blackjack,” said Calvert. 

Frank Prestwick looked around at the group of 
men. “ What are we all doing here? ” 

“ Looking for Saxe and your uncle’s housekeeper,” 
said Calvert. “ Do you feel well enough to stay here 
with Mr. Prestwick now ? ” 

“ Oh, but I’m not going to stay if there’s any ex¬ 
citement on,” declared the nephew. He rose, and 
walked up and down the hall. “ I’m perfectly steady. 
Let’s be after them.” 

“ Perkins, you shall stay here with Mr. Charles 
Prestwick,” Calvert directed. “ I want some one to 
watch the house.” 

“ But, Frank-” protested his uncle. 

“ Oh, I’ll take good care of myself, sir,” said 
the nephew. “No one shall catch me napping 
twice.” 

Again they went out at the rear door, and again 
Calvert’s flash-light played on the bushes. To the 
west of the door he discovered a trail that led into the 
woods. 

“ There’s the exit,” he said. Then he stooped and 
picked up something white, a small strip of linen. 
“What’s this?” he asked aloud. “It looks like a 
piece of a woman’s handkerchief. Yes, it surely is! 



260 CROOKED LANES 

Here are some initials.” He held the torch close to his 
find. “ ‘ E. M.,’ ” he read. 

For a moment he stared at the strip of handker¬ 
chief. “So Ellen Massey was here!” he muttered 
“ She was the woman Bishop saw. And she dropped 
this here for me! ” 

With an exclamation—concise and very much to the 
point—that betokened little good for Joseph Saxe and 
Miss Granby, Calvert plunged into the woods. 


XXI 


GIPSIES IN THE MILL 

The woods at the rear of Charles Prestwick’s house 
were almost impenetrable, but not quite. To Calvert, 
making use of his pocket flash-light,—and, even with 
its aid, stumbling over low branches and scratching his 
face on high ones,—-it appeared that the path had only 
recently been cut, and cut, moreover, on a very zig¬ 
zag plan. Frequently he had to stop and investigate 
the tangle of leafy branches; the only thing that kept 
him on the trail was the fact that in everv other direc- 
tion than the right one there was no pushing through; 
but such slow progress was hard on the temper, and 
in addition Calvert was now very much concerned as 
to what might have happened to Ellen. 

Back of him, in single file, came Blythe, Frank 
Prestwick, Buell and Bishop. Where the leader, with 
his point of yellow light, bored into the forest, they 
followed. And presently they found themselves on 
the other side of the woods. 

They did not come out on a highroad, however, 
as Calvert had expected. Instead they stood at the 
edge of a field, with no further path apparent. Some 


262 


CROOKED LANES 


distance to the east, across the field and an upland 
pasture, a farmhouse was visible in the starlight, and 
beyond it the mass of a barn. Except for that, there 
was only open country. 

“ Not much in the way of a clue,” said Blythe. 

“ Not much,” agreed Calvert. “ Where do you sup¬ 
pose they were making for? ” 

“ I think that farmhouse over there,” put in Prest¬ 
wick, “ must be the one Miss Massey and I saw this 
afternoon. We were walking on the road, and she 
stopped, and pointed out Miss Granby coming out of 
the door. There was a big barn. Yes, that looks like 
the place.” 

“You saw Miss Granby there?” said Calvert. 
“ Well, in that case, the place merits investigation.” 

He took a few steps forward, playing his flash¬ 
light over the grass. Then he stooped and picked up 
a second little strip of white cloth. “ All right,” he 
said. “ It’s over the fields for us! But I wish we 
weren’t so easily seen from the house.” 

They had the night to themselves as they crossed 
the field and the pasture and climbed a barred gate 
into a lane. No sound broke the stillness of the sleep¬ 
ing world. In the farmhouse ahead was no light; in 
the yard no barking dog. 

In the lane they stopped to consider. Should they 
go up and wake the farmer ? Calvert, his eyes roam- 


GIPSIES IN THE MILL 


263 


mg over the countryside, saw a figure coming down the 
road to the right into which the lane ran. 

“ Wait here a minute,” he said; and walked toward 
the road. 

The figure turned out to be a boy, whistling to keep 
himself company. 

As the boy came up he stopped whistling and looked 
at Calvert from head to foot. “Hello, Mister!” he 
said. “ Lost your way ? ” 

“ That’s just what I have done.” Calvert glanced 
around as if seeking some landmark. “ Who lives in 
that house over there ? ” 

“ Farmer named Collins. But he’s not at home to¬ 
night.” The boy gave a chuckle. 

“ That’s too bad. He’s the very man I wanted to 
see.” 

Calvert did not believe in asking unnecessary ques¬ 
tions. Ten chances to one, people, given the oppor¬ 
tunity, would tell him what he wished to know. 

“ No, sir,” said the boy. “ The missis may be in, 
but Mr. Collins isn’t.” Turning, he swept his hand in 
the direction of the country beyond the farmhouse. 
“ There’s gipsies camped over there. They’ve turned 
in for the night now; but I went over to see ’em after 
supper. They’re the real thing, Mister! Wagons and 
a campfire and rings in their ears and red handker¬ 
chiefs round their heads! Gee, but it must be great to 


264 


CROOKED LANES 


be a gipsy! ” For a moment he was lost in contem¬ 
plation of such a glorious existence; then he went on. 
“ I watched ’em till they bedded down for the night, 
and then I came back ’round that corner of the woods. 
There’s an old mill in there; and some people say it’s 
haunted, so I don’t go through there at night. I was 
coming along on this side of the woods, and I’d got as 
far as the path that goes in to the mill when I saw 
some one sitting on a tree trunk. He looked sort of 
funny, sitting there all by himself. Well, Mister, it 
was Farmer Collins! ” 

“ Sitting alone in the woods? ” 

“ Yes, sir; that’s what he was doing. You couldn’t 
have seen him, unless you just happened to. I always 
take a look in along that path, on account of the 
ghosts.” 

“ You’re sure it was Farmer Collins? ” 

“ I spoke to him. I said, ‘ What you doing there, 
Mr. Collins? ’ And he said, sort of gruff-like, ‘ Can’t 
you see? I’m smoking my pipe.’ ‘You’d better look 
out the ghosts don’t get you/ I told him. And he said, 
‘ You run along, or they’ll get you, son.’ ” 

“ And so you came along the road ? ” 

“ Well, he didn’t sound as if he wanted company, 
Mister. But if you want to see him, he’s up there in 
the woods.” 

Calvert slipped a quarter from his pocket. 


265 


GIPSIES IN THE MILL 

“ Catch! ” he said, and tossed the coin. “ I’m much 
obliged for your information. I guess Mrs. Collins 
can tell me all I want to know.” 

“ Thanks, Mister.” The boy, rubbing the coin on 
his flannel shirt sleeve, went on toward Northfield, and 
Calvert turned back up the lane. 

He retailed his news to the others. Then, skirting 
the highroad, they made across the field to the right 
of the farmhouse and entered the haunted woods. 

It was Bishop who played the next act in the drama. 
Noiselessly he snaked forward to a point where the 
starlight showed the line of a path. Over soft moss 
he paralleled the path toward the road, to a tree trunk 
whereon a man was sitting, with his back to the woods. 
He caught the man by the throat, and pressed in his 
fingers so that not a sound escaped. Next minute 
Farmer Collins was lying on the moss, staring up at a 
pistol. And Bishop completed the job in workman¬ 
like fashion by the use of a gag and a couple of lengths 
of rope. 

Farmer Collins was stowed behind a bush, well away 
from the path. Calvert, again in the lead, threaded 
his way in the direction where the mill must be; not 
using his flash-light now, for the trees grew farther 
apart than in the woods at Charles Prestwick’s. 

Every few steps he stopped to listen and to peer 
through the leafy alleys, and he had not gone more 


266 


CROOKED LANES 


than twenty yards or so when he left the line of the 
path and took a more circuitous route. This de¬ 
bouched into an opening, where the stars showed the 
outline of a stone building. As the men halted before 
Calvert’s upraised hand, they made out an old mill, 
roughly constructed and now partly in ruin, with vines 
climbing up to the roof. 

They had reached the mill from the western side, 
and the door, which appeared to be closed, faced the 
south, the direction in which the path ran to that en¬ 
trance from the road where Farmer Collins had been 
sitting. There was a window some three feet from 
the ground in the western wall, but this was covered 
with what looked in the dim light like sacking. 

No sound was audible, no light visible from the 

t 

squat, circular structure. Calvert studied the mill and 
the open space about it with calculating eyes; then he 
began to edge through the aisle of trees in the direc¬ 
tion away from the door. 

On the northern side of the mill he saw something 
that interested him, a window, near the roof, that was 
open. Again warning his companions to stay in am¬ 
bush, he crept silently forward close to the wall. Then 
he bent, and for the third time that night picked up a 
small strip of something white and filmy. He looked 
up at the dark hole of the opening, and tiptoed back 
to his friends. 


GIPSIES IN THE MILL 267 

In the woods he whispered directions. Then, with 
Bishop, he went over to the wall again. 

Joists projected at intervals between the rough, un¬ 
even stones; and one of these stuck out six inches 
below the window. Bishop gripped his hands together 
and braced his back against the wall. Calvert put his 
foot in the loop, and was thrust upward. He stepped 
on Bishop’s shoulder and gave a nimble spring. He 
caught the projecting beam, caught the ledge of the 
window. Another shove by Bishop, and Calvert had 
his knees on the ledge. 

He looked into darkness as he reached for his 
revolver. But instantly he saw that this place was a 
loft, with a flooring that completely covered the well 
of the mill. He straddled the window ledge; and then 
he heard something. Some one was cautiously coming 
over toward him. 

He swung both legs inside, and, letting himself down 
to the flooring, stood up. 

Now he could see a figure, the light dress of a 
woman. 

“ Is it you, Ellen? ” he whispered. 

“ Yes,” came the soft answer. “ My hands are 
tied.” 

One noiseless step and he reached her. With quick 
fingers he found the knot in ths rope and unloosed her 
wrists. 


268 


CROOKED LANES 


“ You oughtn’t to have done this, Ellen! ” he whis¬ 
pered. 

“ I had to. You told me to keep an eye on Frank 
Prestwick.” 

Her voice, hardly more than a murmur, had a 
pathetic, tired note. 

“ Ellen-” He touched her shoulder. 

“Yes, Hamilton? You found the strips of my 
handkerchief? ” 

“ Ellen! ” He had her in his arms. 

She trembled against him like a weary child. 

“ Ellen, I-” 

“ Oh, not now, Hamilton! ” 

“ Ellen, I love you, dear! I’ll never let you run 
such risks again! ” 

She lifted her head, and their lips met. For a long 
moment she stayed in his embrace; then gently drew 
away. 

“ Hamilton, dear, they found me outside of Mr. 
Prestwick’s and brought me here. There’s a ladder 
against the inside wall of the mill, and a trap-door 
in the floor on the other side.” 

He crossed the loft, knelt, felt along the flooring, 
found the edge of the trap, and lifted it, almost im¬ 
perceptibly, but enough to satisfy him that it wasn’t 
fastened below. 

i 

Back again at her side, he whispered instructions. 




269 


GIPSIES IN THE MILL 

At the window Calvert flashed his torch once, and 
Bishop came out from the woods and stood close 
against the wall. 

Calvert swung himself up to the ledge and sat there, 
one foot in and one out. Ellen followed, and he held 
her tight until she had her knee on the projecting 
beam-end. Then, bracing himself, he caught her un¬ 
der the arms, and, leaning far out, lifted her down 
until her toes touched Bishop’s shoulders. Her fingers 
in the crevices of the stones, she let herself slide, and 
came easily into Bishop’s arms. 

Calvert gave a sigh of relief as he saw her safe in 
the woods. Then he waited at the window while his 
companions proceeded to follow out his directions. 

Five minutes passed. Blythe, at the edge of the 
trees, waved a white handkerchief. 

Revolver in hand, Calvert darted across the loft 
and lifted the trap-door. At the same instant there 
was the sound of rending wood from the front of the 
mill. 

“ Hands up! ” cried Calvert at the open trap-door. 

“ Hands up! ” came the voice of Bishop from below. 

A candle in the lower room of the mill showed three 
gipsies, two men and a woman, dark-skinned people, 
the men in rough corduroys, the woman in a bright 
calico. There were rings in their ears, and one man 
had a red bandanna about his head. 


270 


CROOKED LANES 


On an upturned box were packages of bank-notes; 
and one of the men was taking a bundle from a hole 
in the wall. 

A glance at the broken-in door, where a man stood 
with leveled revolver, a glance at the window, where 
in the torn sacking another revolver had appeared, a 
glance at the hole in the ceiling,—and the gipsies put 
up their hands. 

“ Now,” ordered Calvert, “ stand back against that 
wall! ” And while Bishop, and Buell at the window, 
kept the three covered, he ran nimbly down the ladder. 

He dispossessed his two men prisoners of the pistols 
in their pockets and the knives in their belts. The 
woman had no weapon hidden in her clothes. 

Behind Bishop at the door Frank Prestwick and 
Blythe and Ellen were now watching the scene. To 
Prestwick and Blythe Calvert handed the captured re¬ 
volvers. Then he turned to the captives. 

“ Well? ” he said, with his slow smile. 

“ What are you doing here? ” demanded the man in 
the bandanna. “ We’re only harmless gipsies. There 
are a lot of us camped around here.” 

“ No,” said Calvert. “ The jig’s up. Trinkets and 
walnut stain will do a good deal, but not enough this 
time. What are three innocent gipsies doing with all 
that money? Taking it out of that hiding-place in the 
wall of the mill? Money that belongs to Odin Welsh 


GIPSIES IN THE MILL 


271 


and Charles Prestwick. I don’t know how many 
aliases you have between you; but I’m satisfied to call 
you Miss Granby, Saxe, and Brewster.” 

He nodded to Bishop. “ The handcuffs.” 

The prisoners were on the opposite side of the mill 
from the door, and there were now five armed men 
confronting them. There was nothing to do but sur¬ 
render. The handcuffs were slipped on and locked. 

“ Now,” said Calvert, “ I’m going to ask Mr. Prest¬ 
wick to go back to his uncle’s and get Perkins to tele¬ 
phone for a couple of cars. Perhaps you’ll come back 
with them,” he added to Prestwick. “ This isn’t such 
an easy place to find.” 

Prestwick made off through the woods. 

Miss Granby’s dark eyes fixed on Buell. “ So you 
sold us out, did you?” she muttered. “ Oh, yes, I 
know you, in spite of that beard. We’ll get even with 
you some day, Sam Lunt.” 

“ Sam Lunt! ” exclaimed Blythe. “ You don’t mean 
to say that Buell-” 

Calvert laid his hand on Blythe’s arm. “ Hadn’t 
you guessed? The man in the cap. . . . Nancy 

Hackett’s friend at Newbridge.” Then, as he saw 
Blythe’s stare of utter amazement, he went on: “ I’m 
not going to let Buell, alias Lunt, escape us. I’m tak¬ 
ing him back to Sherwood with me, and to-morrow 
we’ll give him a chance to explain.” 



XXII 


THE NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 

The oaks and maples of Sherwood had never ap¬ 
peared more beautiful than they did when Blythe 
looked out at them next morning from a guest-room 
window. It was a fair, fresh midsummer day, with 
everything garbed in green. As he stood, enjoying 
the breeze and the lovely view, the amazing events of 
the previous night seemed like some melodrama he 
had witnessed at a theatre. Calvert and his compan¬ 
ions had captured three criminals, who had been sent 
off in a car, guarded by Bishop and Perkins, to the 
jail in Westminster. The rest had returned in a sec¬ 
ond car to Charles Prestwick’s house, where Frank had 
remained with his uncle. There Calvert had picked 
up his own little automobile, which he had left by the 
roadside, and with Ellen Massey on the seat beside 
him and Buell perched on one running-board and 
Blythe on the other, had driven into Northfield. At 
Mr. Trimble’s house Calvert and Miss Massey had 
descended, and—after what had seemed to Blythe a 
rather lengthy good-night on the porch—Calvert had 
brought the two men to Sherwood. It was then con- 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 273 


siderably past midnight, and Blythe had accepted Cal¬ 
vert’s invitation to spend the night under the same 
roof with him and Buell. 

Thinking what a wonderful story he would have to 
tell Joan and the Eddys, Blythe went down the stairs 
in search of breakfast. From the hall he could hear 
Calvert at the telephone in the study. Calvert was 
saying: “Yes, Mrs. Trimble. I don’t wonder she’s 
sleeping late. But when she comes down, please tell 
her that I called up, and that I’ll call again within the 
course of an hour.” 

“ Morning, Roger,” said Calvert, looking even more 
pink-cheeked than usual as he came into the hall. 
“Gorgeous day! And I’ll wager you’re ready for 
food. Grant’ll have breakfast for us in a jiffy now.” 

They sat down at the table in the dining-room. 
“Great performance last night, wasn’t it, my boy?” 
Calvert continued, beaming broadly. “ Clever idea, 
that of our friends to make themselves up as gipsies! 
Fve had the country round Northfield pretty well pa¬ 
trolled the last couple of days; but if our three friends 
had actually mixed in with that bona fide gipsy band 
—and I’ve no doubt they’d arranged to—I don’t know 
whether my men would have picked them out of the 
motley bunch or not. If they hadn’t been so keen 
about counting over the swag that Brewster brought 
from Welsh’s and taking the rest of the booty 


274 


CROOKED LANES 


out of its hiding-place, if they’d actually been in one 
of the gipsy’s wagons . . . they might have got 

away. I don’t know. Luckily they didn’t. Thank 
you, Grant. Those fried eggs look absolute perfec¬ 
tion.” 

Blythe stirred the cup of coffee that Grant had set 
beside his breakfast plate. “ What do you think they’d 
have done with Miss Massey? ” 

“ I don’t know, Roger. I hope they’d have had de¬ 
cency enough to tip Farmer Collins off to the fact 
that she was in the loft of the mill, so that he could 
have let her out next day when they’d made their get¬ 
away. Plucky girl that! And to think of her leaving 
those bits of handkerchief along the trail! ” 

“ She certainly is, Hamilton. I suppose she’s an old 
friend of yours? ” 

“ Tried and true! ” said Calvert. “ One woman in 
a million! ” 

“ Yes,” agreed Blythe. “ Tell me more about her.” 

At this point, however, there was a step on the stair. 
“ Another time,” said Calvert, putting down his coffee 
cup. 

Grant pulled out the third chair at the table as the 
other guest came in. Turning round, Blythe saw a 
clean-shaven man in a suit of dark-blue flannel. It 
was William Buell, and not William Buell. This man 
wore his hair parted on the side, whereas Buell had 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 275 

parted his in the middle. Unconcealed by a beard, 
the cheek-bones, the mouth and the chin looked much 
more aggressive than Buell’s, 

Calvert’s eyes met those of the man in dark blue, 
and the latter nodded. “ Good-morning, gentlemen,” 
he said. “ Ah, thank you, Grant.” 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Caradine,” said Calvert. 

Grant stared in utter amazement. It was only by 
marvelous self-possession that he repressed an excla¬ 
mation. As for Blythe, he said, thunder-struck: 
“ Caradine! What do you mean ? ” 

“ I forgot,” said Calvert. “ You’ve never met Mr. 
John Caradine, have you, Roger? Allow me to in¬ 
troduce you. As I recall, you want to get some in¬ 
formation from him about his adventures for your 
magazine articles.” 

Blythe leaned forward, his expression incredulous. 
“ John Caradine!—You? ” he exclaimed. 

The man in blue flannel turned to Grant. “ What 
do you say about it? ” he asked. 

“ You look enough like him to be his double, sir,” 
said the awestruck servant. 

“ Very diplomatically answered. Well, Grant, if 
you’ll be so good as to let me have my breakfast, I’ll 
try to answer Mr. Blythe’s questions.” 

“ Who was the man we found shot on the floor of 
the study?” Blythe exploded. 


276 


CROOKED LANES 


The man in blue looked at Calvert as he unfolded 
his napkin. “ I thought that Mr. Blythe wanted in¬ 
formation about my Brazilian experiences; but it 
seems that his first question is more in your line.” 

“ All right. Go ahead with your eggs.” Calvert 
pushed his chair back from the table and lighted 
a cigarette. “ The man we found, my dear Roger, was 
none other than Samuel Lunt.” 

“ Lunt! ” exclaimed Blythe. “ But every one took 
it for granted that he was John Caradine! ” 

“ Which only shows,” said Calvert, “ that there was 
no one here who could positively identify Caradine. 
You and I couldn’t, nor Police Lieutenant Erdman, 
nor his cousin Miss Fordyce. Grant was away; so 
was the housekeeper. And the resemblance was really 
remarkable. I cut a picture of John Caradine out of 
the newspaper, and Nancy Hackett thought it was 
Lunt.” 

“ The Granby woman last night thought I was her 
old friend Lunt, who had grown a beard,” put in the 
man in blue flannel. 

“ And didn’t Nancy Hackett ever wonder as to the 
identity of Bill Buell? ” Calvert asked him. 

“ I don’t know. Nancy is a good sort. She had 
been fond of Lunt, and she seemed to like Buell; 
and I don’t think she’d have given either of them 
away.” 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 277 


“ And it was you who shot Lunt? ” said Blythe, still 
half-incredulous: 

Caradine nodded. “ He shot first. I was expecting 
trouble, from Welsh or some of his people. I had a 
pistol, and I shot in self-defense. But I’m interrupting 
Calvert’s story.” 

“ It’s not mine,” smiled the man at the head of the 
table. “ Though maybe I’ve studied the facts a little 
more intensively than any one else. Lunt and the three 
we captured last night, together with the beautiful 
Madeleine Legros and her duenna and so-called aunt 
Madame Gavroche, were members of a band of crooks 
who have worked together in various parts of the 
country. Their favorite field has usually been the 
smaller run of towns, where their diversified abilities 
and Miss Legros’ charm have enabled them to impress 
—and fleece—some of the wealthier citizens. Lunt 
came to Westminster, and obtained a position in the 
Commercial Bank a couple of years ago. He studied 
the neighborhood and picked out likely prospects. 
Odin Welsh in Westminster and Charles Prestwick in 
Northfield apparently took his eye. Madeleine was the 
woman to fascinate Welsh, while the smooth-spoken 
Brewster could become his secretary and so dip his 
fingers into Welsh’s money-bags. Madame Gavroche 
would chaperon Madeleine by posing as her aunt and 
setting up a respectable establishment at Northfield. 


278 


CROOKED LANES 


As to Prestwick, they would provide him with a house¬ 
keeper, Miss Granby, and a man-servant, Joseph Saxe. 
What Lunt was to do I’m not certain; possibly lie 
hadn’t decided on the part he would play. But then 
John Caradine came home from South America, and 
as soon as Lunt took in the resemblance between him¬ 
self and the explorer he hit on an idea. He would 
take Caradine’s place, help himself to as much of Cara- 
dine’s wealth as he could, and disappear. Circum¬ 
stances played admirably into his hands. 

“ Well, you know how he worked it. Through his 
ally Brewster he had Odin Welsh telephone Caradine 
asking for an appointment here on the next evening, 
that is, on June third. Then Lunt telephoned some 
pal in New York to send him a telegram, as had been 
previously arranged. The telegram arrived on the 
afternoon of June third, and Lunt informed his bank 
and his landlady that he was called away to see a sick 
relative. That was a reasonable, legitimate excuse; 
his going away from Westminster on such business 
could not possibly rouse any suspicion. Probably 
his intention was to write later to the bank and to 
Mrs. Ostrander, saying that he wouldn’t be back; 
but as the event fell out he didn’t have a chance to do 
that. 

“ He had read up on Brazil, in case any one should 
chance to ask him questions about that country, when 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 279 

he was pretending to be Caradine. He wore a new 
suit, probably one very much like a suit he had seen 
Caradine wearing. You must bear in mind that he had 
been patterning himself on Caradine for some time, 
rehearsing the part, as it were. And some time dur¬ 
ing the afternoon of June third he left Mrs. Ostran¬ 
der’s with his hand-bag. Some time later, in the even¬ 
ing, he came here to Sherwood, hid his bag in the 
bushes, and walked around to the garage. Very 
cleverly planned. Samuel Lunt could easily disappear, 
and no one who had known him would wonder about 
it until after he had had time to get hold of Caradine’s 
property and leave the neighborhood. And, as it hap¬ 
pened, there was no reason why the Westminster po¬ 
lice, nor Mrs. Ostrander, nor the bank people, should 
have connected Lunt’s going to New York with the 
Caradine case.” 

Calvert smiled at his attentive audience. “ Well, as 
I say, Lunt came here, and, pretending to be Caradine, 
sent Grant away.” 

“Then it wasn’t you, sir? ” exclaimed Grant, look¬ 
ing at his master. 

Caradine shook his head. 

“ However,” said Calvert, “ you mustn’t blame your¬ 
self for making that mistake, Grant. Nine men out 
of ten would have been fooled by the resemblance, and 
you didn’t have a good look at him. Very well. 


280 


CROOKED LANES 


When Grant was out of the way, Lunt walked into the 
house. But instead of shooting his intended victim, 
Caradine shot him; in self-defense, of course, Lunt 
having fired first. Now, Mr. Caradine.” 

The owner of Sherwood frowned. “ It sounds so 
very extraordinary, when one tells it in broad day¬ 
light,” he said. “ I had the oddest sensation when I 
looked at the man. I thought—why shouldn’t I dis¬ 
appear, and have a chance to find out what was going 
on in Westminster from the point of view of a 
stranger? There were several reasons why that ap¬ 
pealed to me.” 

Blythe thought he knew the reasons; to investigate 
Odin Welsh’s affairs, to keep an eye on Lilian Welsh, 
perhaps to be in a better position to befriend her as a 
stranger than as John Caradine. 

“ I can quite understand,” said Calvert. “ In the 
same circumstances that idea would have made a strong 
appeal to me. You transferred things from your 
pockets to the pockets of the man on the floor. You 
picked up his revolver. Then you snatched up a cap 
and light overcoat—I suppose you were provided with 
plenty of ready money—and took the trolley to New¬ 
bridge? ” 

Caradine nodded. “ I meant to go away for a little 
while, and then come back to Westminster as a 
Stranger,” 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 281 


“ But at the station,” Calvert continued, “ Nancy 
Hackett saw you and took you for Lunt ? ” 

“ Right again. She called out ‘ Hello, Sam, what 
are you doing here ? ’ I told her my name was Buell. 
But she kept on telling me how much I looked like a 
friend of hers named Lunt. That interested me. I 
thought it might be this Lunt who had shot at me 
here; and I wanted to find out something about him, 
what his motive could have been. I made up a story 
to explain the resemblance by saying that I was Lunt’s 
half-brother. We talked some time, and of course I 
missed that train and had to take the next one. And 
when I came back, with my beard grown, I looked 
Nancy up and tried to be very friendly, so as to learn 
more about Lunt. Fve never been sure whether she 
believed my story about the half-brother or not. But 
she stood by me all right, no matter what her suspi¬ 
cions.” 

“ How you must have chuckled,” put in Blythe, 
“ when we discussed what had happened to Lunt, and 
when we went to Mrs. Ostrander's! ” 

“ Well, yon see, that was part of my game. When 
I found out from Nancy that Lunt had been away for 
a month and hadn’t been heard from I was morally 
certain that he was the man who had fired at me at 
Sherwood. I wanted to remain incognito in West¬ 
minster long enough to find out what Welsh and some 


282 


CROOKED LANES 


others—Brewster, for example—were doing there. 
But I wanted some one to start unraveling the actual 
story of what had happened to Lunt, so that later the 
truth about that would come out, and then, the facts 
all known, I could make my reappearance. I wanted 
you, Blythe, to pick up that clue, and then, when I met 
Calvert, I wanted him to help you with it. Naturally 
I was also interested in seeing what my cousin Miss 
Fordyce was doing. And as for that tip about Mrs. 
Madison, I had found out that she was a sort of secret 
agent for Welsh and his secretary. Things have been 
pretty crooked in Westminster in more ways than one, 
and Mrs. Madison could tell us a good deal about some 
of the crookedness.” 

“ And I thought you were a perfect pattern of detec¬ 
tive ! ” laughed Blythe. 

“ You had him tagged, didn’t you, Roger?” 
chuckled Calvert. “ Most approved pattern of detec¬ 
tive. You’d never have suspected me.” 

“ That was a great idea of yours, to announce the 
arrest of Lunt,” said Caradine, turning to Calvert. 

“ It was really Miss Massey’s idea,” explained Cal¬ 
vert. “ But it made the crooks sit up. Of course you 
understand that Brewster, with his power of attorney, 
was getting his hands on all the negotiable securities 
of Welsh’s he could find and turning them into money; 
and that Saxe was doing the same thing for Prestwick. 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 283 


I dare say they’d been stowing them away from time 
to time in the mill. But when they heard that Lunt 
was arrested, they acted quickly, as I knew they 
would. There was only one question in my mind. 
What would Welsh do? I had a talk with him yester¬ 
day, and tried to make him see his position. But 
Madeleine was too much for him. She got him away 
with her. And I haven’t had the two of them, or 
Madame Gavroche, arrested.” 

There was a short silence. “ I’m glad you haven’t,” 
said Caradine. “ Let him go; and the two women 
also.” 

Blythe understood what prompted that remark. 
Caradine felt satisfied that Odin Welsh was elimi¬ 
nated as an evil factor in the business life of West¬ 
minster, and that, as a result, certain conditions to 
which he had so strenuously objected would right them¬ 
selves. Also—so Blythe imagined Caradine reason¬ 
ing—Lilian Welsh’s position would be improved with 
her husband out of the way. Under the circumstances 
she might secure a divorce; and, once free, might 
not Caradine become more to her than a devoted 
friend ? 

The same thoughts were in Calvert’s mind. ‘‘A 
good riddance of bad baggage,” he said. “ By the 
way, Roger, I suppose you understand now why Buell 
jumped into the bushes yesterday when he saw you 


284 


CROOKED LANES 


and Mrs. Welsh on the road? Mrs. Welsh was one 
of the few people who might have recognized him.” 

Blythe nodded. “And I know now why Buell 
turned away when Mrs. Welsh passed us in her car in 
Westminster. That puzzled me at the time.” 

“ I don’t wonder,” said Caradine, who had now 
finished his breakfast and was leaning back in his chair. 
“ I tell you, I got pretty well twisted myself trying to 
be Buell. And every once in a while people who had 
known Lunt came up to me and asked me why I’d 
grown a beard. That time when you were at the 
window of Miss Fordyce’s office and saw me standing 
in the doorway opposite—when that fellow put his 
hand on my shoulder and called me Sam—that’s an 
example.” 

“ It must have taken a good deal of clever acting,” 
said Calvert. “And speaking of that, Brewster was a 
shrewd hand. He appeared to be the perfect private 
secretary,—Mrs. Welsh apparently never suspected 
that he wasn’t what he seemed,—and yet he managed 
to make things so unpleasant for her, by reminding 
her that her husband had telephoned to Sherwood 
asking to see John Caradine on the evening of June 
third, and in other ways, that she left Broadlawn. 
Another instance of creating an atmosphere. He 
wanted her out of the house. He could manage Welsh 
and the servants.” 


NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 285 

“ Talk about creating an atmosphere/’ chuckled 
Caradine. “ I had to provide myself with an entirely 
new history! I had no idea it would be so hard to 
change identities; if I had, I’d have thought twice 
before I started out on any such wild plan. But, you 
see, I’ve always had a hankering after strange adven¬ 
tures.” 

“Shall I clear the table, sir?” asked Grant, sud¬ 
denly rousing from his complete attention to what was 
being said. 

Caradine nodded. “ Grant is probably the only man 
who could hear such a story,” he observed, “ and not 
be flabbergasted.” 

“ Oh, I am amazed, sir,” expostulated the servant. 
“ It’s the most unusual thing I ever heard. But, beg¬ 
ging your pardon, sir, I always told the gentlemen 
that I didn’t understand you.” 

Laughing at the perfect servant, Calvert looked at 
his watch. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he 
said, “ I want to telephone.” 

“ I dare say you’ll be very busy to-day,” said Cara¬ 
dine. “ Please use my car as if it were your own.” 

As a result of his telephoning Calvert did take the 
car; and, while Blythe went to the Peacock Inn to 
tell his amazing story to Joan, Mrs. Welsh, and the 
Eddys, and Caradine walked to the trolley on his way 
to see Joshua Mason and explain his return, Calvert 


286 CROOKED LANES 

drove over to Northfield to the cottage of Jonathan 
Trimble. 

On the porch sat a pretty young woman, engaged 
in knitting. 

“ Good-morning, Hamilton,” she said, as coolly as 
if this was any ordinary day. 

“ How are you feeling, Ellen? ” the caller inquired. 

“ Fit as a fiddle. Frank Prestwick telephoned a 
little while ago. He said he was as right as rain 
this morning, and that his uncle was simply ripping.” 

“ Ellen,—any one inside the house? ” 

“ Mr. Trimble went down-town; I think Mrs. Trim¬ 
ble’s in the kitchen.” 

Calvert drew up a chair, very close to the young 
woman, and possessed himself of both her hands. 

“ Some one might go by on the street, Hamilton,” 
she murmured. 

“ I don’t care if the whole universe goes by,” he 
answered brazenly. “ Ellen dearest, will you marry 
me?” 

“ I- . . . Oh, Hamilton, how impulsive 

you are! ” 

i 

“ Will you marry me, darling? ” 

“ I- . . . Oh, I suppose I might—if you 

really want me to.” 

Half an hour later Mrs. Trimble, coming to the 
front door, gave a little exclamation, and tiptoed away 




NEXT MORNING AT SHERWOOD 287 


again. She had seen her paying guest sitting close to 
a man, her head leaning against his shoulder. 

Mr. and Mrs. Calvert stopped at the Peacock Inn 
for a day and a night on their wedding trip that 
autumn. The Eddys were more than glad to see them, 
they were delighted. 

As they sat around the fire in the evening Eddy 
rubbed his hands in true Boniface fashion. “ I tell 
you what it is,” he said, “ this has been a successful 
season! Hamilton has got himself a wife; and Roger 
and Joan are engaged; and Lilian Welsh is suing for a 
divorce-” 

“ Oh, Herbert! ” broke in Agnes. 

“ Suing for a divorce,” he repeated. “And then, 
if I’m not very much mistaken, she’s going to become 
the mistress of Sherwood. Yes, it’s been a very big 
summer, thanks to the Caradine affair! ” 

“And thanks to the beneficent influence of the Pea¬ 
cock Inn,” said Calvert. “ With the example of the 
Eddys before us, how could any one doubt the virtue 
of matrimony? ” 

“ My dear Mrs. Calvert,” said Agnes, “ your hus¬ 
band is a wonderful man. I used to adore hearing him 
talk, even before I knew how remarkable he really 
was.” 

“ Oh, please-” protested Ellen’s husband. 




288 


CROOKED LANES 


“ No, Hamilton is right,” said Eddy in his single 
track way. ‘‘Atmosphere and example have a great 
deal to do with virtue or crime. I’ve talked a good 
deal with John Caradine lately, and he’s told me that 
if he hadn’t lived so much among uncivilized people it 
would never have occurred to him to do such an 
extraordinary thing.” 

“ I suppose so,” agreed Calvert. “And yet there is 
a temptation to the normal man in the idea of chang¬ 
ing places. That is, until one’s married, of course,” 
he added, smiling at his wife. 


THE END 











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